Design Sustainability Criteria

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle AND REMOVE

iF Design, a respected member of the international design community since 1953, and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD, is announcing a significant update to its 2025 award. Sustainability will now represent one-fifth of the judging criteria across the Award’s nine design disciplines and 82 categories, evaluated equally alongside Idea, Form, Function and Differentiation. As part of the organization’s ongoing commitment to excellence and impact in design, the iF DESIGN AWARD has replaced the former Impact criteria, which included commercial considerations, with Sustainability, which focuses entirely on social and environmental factors. With this, iF Design is underlining its ongoing commitment to elevating this important conversation about sustainable design and working to help usher positive change in the industry and beyond.

In adjusting the award criteria of one of the world’s largest independent design awards, iF Design is showcasing their larger commitment to impact through design that has been central to the mission for over seventy years. iF Design has also appointed Lisa Gralnek as the company’s Global Head of Sustainability and Impact, a role she holds in tandem to her position as Managing Director of iF Design USA Inc. With over 15 years of experience working in social and environmental topics across a range of industries and geographies, Lisa’s expertise has been instrumental to implementing these changes at iF Design and helping shepherd in what iF Design believes will be a new and better design future.

iF Design's new Sustainability Working Group, comprising seven cross-disciplinary experts, is shaping the 2025 awards process to better integrate environmental and social impact. These specialists, including leaders from Positive Luxury, Popular Science, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Dell Technologies, and Accenture, will guide jurors through enhanced evaluation criteria and provide insights during the two-step jurying process. They have also collaborated with iF Design to refine sustainability questions for applicants across categories, allowing submissions to highlight accredited social or environmental certifications.