Skip to content
110 Trees Planted We're Green-hosted
The Sustainable UX Design Foundations Online Course

ONLINE | ON-DEMAND

Sustainable UX Foundations

Learn practical strategies for designing apps and websites that are better for people, business, and planet

The Sustainable UX Design Foundations Online Course

Learn practical strategies for designing apps and websites that are better for people, business, and planet

Course details

120+ Practical strategies you can apply now
80+ Recommended Tools to bookmark
Real World examples plus mock-ups
Tips for balancing sustainability and business
30 Lessons
12 Month Access
Certificate

Original price was: $299.00.Current price is: $250.00.

No added taxes
Pay in full or in 4 interest-free payments

About the course

Course details

120+ Practical strategies you can apply now
80+ Recommended Tools to bookmark
Real World examples, plus mock-ups
Tips for balancing sustainability and business
30 Lessons
12 Month Access
Certificate

Original price was: $299.00.Current price is: $250.00.

No added taxes
Pay in full or in 4 interest-free payments

Design digital experiences to use less energy and reduce your carbon output

Design digital experiences to use less energy and reduce your carbon output

Sustainable UX expands on the UX skills you have to make design decisions that also reduce the carbon footprint of digital products without sacrificing quality, creativity, or performance.

In this course, you’ll learn how energy is used across the digital ecosystem and how your everyday UX, UI, content, and design decisions can:

  • Meaningfully reduce carbon emissions
  • Improve site performance
  • Support accessibility and inclusivity
  • Reduce digital waste

Most importantly, you’ll walk away with practical strategies you can apply immediately, regardless of your level of influence or technical experience.

Measure, benchmark, and innovate with carbon calculators

Learn easy-to-use web-carbon calculators to audit your pages, set a baseline, uncover optimisation opportunities, and demonstrate the value of low-carbon UX to stakeholders.

Design Low-energy, Low-carbon UX

Learn practical UX, UI, and content techniques to reduce energy use and cut carbon emissions—many of which you can apply immediately to any project.

UX Levers for Lowering Carbon

UX Levers for Lowering Carbon

Whether you’re designing websites, apps, intranets, SaaS platforms, or any other digital product, this course shows you what Low-Carbon UX really means, why it matters, and how to start applying it the moment you move from research into solution design.

You’ll learn to work with the key UX levers for lowering carbon—wireframing, interaction design, content design, click-path shaping, and UI decisions—where designers have the most control and the greatest ability to reduce energy use.

Content

Images, media, copy, and add-ons slow sites and raise energy use.

Features & AI

Maps, chat widgets, feeds, etc. and AI-powered features slow sites, use energy use, and risk privacy.

Data

Unethical or excessive data use wastes energy, risks privacy, and excludes users.

Styling

Fonts, colours, and layouts impact both energy use and accessibility.

Click Paths

Long or complex journeys load extra pages and waste energy.

Communications

Each email or alert uses energy, adds clutter, and can exclude some users.

A pragmatic approach for real work

A pragmatic approach for real work

Sustainable UX doesn’t require overhauling your process or winning over a room full of sceptics before you can start.

This course gives you strategies for every level of influence — from decisions you can make on your own to ideas worth bringing to your team or leadership.

Quick wins you own

Small, intentional design decisions you can implement today — no approval needed. These fit into your existing workflow and start reducing digital waste immediately.

Ideas worth sharing up

Bigger moves that benefit from team or stakeholder buy-in. You’ll learn how to frame these so they land with a creative director, a product manager, or a client who’s never thought about digital sustainability before.

Balancing sustainability with business

Sustainable UX isn’t at odds with good business. You’ll learn how to make the case, pick your battles, and find the overlap between reducing environmental impact and hitting the goals your clients and stakeholders actually care about.

Support business and planetary initiatives

Support business and planetary initiatives

Low-carbon UX doesn’t just support users—it supports the wider systems your organisation is part of.

Lowering energy demand contributes directly to Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG), organisational carbon-reduction commitments, and broader planetary frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

Support the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG)

Design in alignment with the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Sustainability Guidelines↗ (WSG), which set the benchmark for creating lower-carbon, energy-efficient digital products. 

W3C logo

Strengthen organisational carbon-reduction initiatives

Help your organisation reduce unnecessary digital energy use, cut emissions, and meet sustainability commitments through smarter, lighter design decisions.

Advance UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Low-carbon UX supports SDGs related to climate action, responsible consumption, reduced inequalities, and sustainable digital innovation.

SDG #12 Responsible consumption and production
SDG #10 Reduced Inequalities
SDG #13 Climate Action

Who this course is for

Who this course is for

This course is for designers and innovators of all experience levels who want to reduce the planetary impact of their work with the power they have.

UX/UI Designers

You have more power than you realise—design to reduce energy use and digital waste while still delighting users and achieving business goals.

Content Designers

Optimise words, images, and assets to tell richer stories while cutting file size, energy use, and digital waste.

Design Leads

Lead teams to design sustainably and responsibly alongside achieving business goals, metrics, and growth.

Curious Developers

Even though this course focuses on UX, not code, developers can support low-carbon UX by understanding the design decisions that shape energy use.

Meet your teacher

Meet your teacher

Damien Lutz, author of The Non-human Persona Guide, The Life-centred Design Guide, and Future Scouting

Damien Lutz

  • Founder of Life-centred Design Lab
  • Senior UX Designer
  • Teacher

20 years in the trenches

Twenty years of commercial UX practice—and still there—means Damien knows exactly what you’re up against: sceptical stakeholders, tight sprints, and push back on anything that slows things down.

A pragmatic approach

Damien has applied sustainable UX across live websites, hitting every real business, marketing, and content constraint. This has forged his pragmatic approach for the commercial world.

Regulation-informed

Damien grounds his approach in the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines and emerging regulations, translating them into creative strategies that fit the way designers actually think and work. Less carbon-calculating, more creative decision-making.

Internationally recognised

Damien is the author of The Life-centred Design Guide, The Non-human Persona Guide, and Future Scouting, and has taught designers, students, and innovators at Politecnico di Milano, the University of Sydney, and more.

Damien Lutz, author of The Non-human Persona Guide, The Life-centred Design Guide, and Future Scouting

Damien Lutz

  • Founder of the Life-centred Design Lab
  • Senior UX Designer
  • Teacher

20 years in the trenches

Twenty years of commercial UX practice—and still there—means Damien knows exactly what you’re up against: sceptical stakeholders, tight sprints, and push back on anything that slows things down.

A pragmatic approach

Damien has applied sustainable UX across live websites, hitting every real business, marketing, and content constraint. This has forged his pragmatic approach for the commercial world.

Regulation-informed

Damien grounds his approach in the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines and emerging regulations, translating them into creative strategies that fit the way designers actually think and work. Less carbon-calculating, more creative decision-making.

Internationally recognised

Damien is the author of The Life-centred Design Guide, The Non-human Persona Guide, and Future Scouting, and has taught designers, students, and innovators at Politecnico di Milano, the University of Sydney, and more.

FAQS

FAQs

This course is primarily for digital designers and leads—including UX, UI, and content designers, of any experience level—who want to learn about the power their work has to do less harm and more good for the planet and society, and to implement it efficiently.

This course is also for developers curious about design and how they can support sustainable design, while also growing their own design skills.

The course is suitable for digital designers and innovators of any experience level, from juniors to seniors and leads.

The time it takes to complete this course depends on how you wish to learn—see “How will I Learn?”

You can access the course material for the period stated in the “Course Details” panel, from your purchase date, while the product is online and supported. When this period ends, access ends unless otherwise stated.

Why not lifetime access?

  • Learning works best when it gets finished
    • Instead of lifetime access that turns valuable courses into a to-do list that often never gets started, a defined access period gives you the motivation and flexibility to learn at your own pace, revisit key ideas, apply them in real projects, and get real value by actually upskilling rather than collecting content.
    • Do you really want ‘lifetime’ access, or do you need an experience that helps you focus, learn, and gain real skills while the content is at its most current and useful?
  • Tech and the world are changing fast
    • Design, sustainability, technology, platforms, partnerships, and business models change over time, so a defined access period lets us keep content relevant, update or retire material responsibly, and be clear about what we can realistically support.
    • Keeping outdated courses online “for life” adds to digital clutter and waste, increasing storage, energy use, carbon emissions, and water consumption in data centres for content that may no longer be relevant or valuable.

The course is structured for learning sustainable design strategies from the start of a design project to the end, so that you may apply the learnings to any project.

However, how you learn is up to you, for example, you can use the course modules to:

  • Redesign an existing project
  • Design a New Website or Experience
  • Go straight to the high-impact wins—start learning the basics which you can apply to almost any digital experience
  • Follow your curiosity—Jump into the section that excites you most

No matter which path you take, you’ll be building the skills and confidence to design experiences that not only work better for people, but also support the planet.

Yes! The course is completely online at at your own pace from any time zone.

To ensure the integrity of this course, certificates are only given to those who complete a design project and submit their work for review.

Send an email to in**@*********ed.design to learn more.

The course instructor is the Sydney-based designer, researcher, and writer, Damien Lutz, founder of lifecentred.design and futurescouting.com.au, and author The Life-centred Design Guide, The Non-human Persona Guide, and Future Scouting.

Damien created the first framework for life-centred design and published the first guide on life-centred and  non-human persona design based on project work, interviews with other practitioners and experts, and research.

damienlutz.com.au

Yes, we also offer customised training for creating and using non-human personas as in-house training. Contact us for more details at in**@*********ed.design.

Unfortunately, there are no discounts for courses at this price.

Back To Top

We use eco-friendly web hosting

For every amperage this site pulls from the grid, GreenGeeks web hosting returns 3 times as much renewable energy to the grid—learn about green hosting.

This will close in 0 seconds

Damien Lutz, author of The Non-human Persona Guide, The Life-centred Design Guide, and Future Scouting

We replenish what we use

A percentage of profits from design guides by Damien Lutz are donated to onetreeplanted.org to replace the trees used to create the books

This will close in 0 seconds

LCD Lab aims to be low-carbon, inclusive, and regenerative

 

This site's hosting is green

This website runs on green hosting - verified by thegreenwebfoundation.org

Energy used by our web hosting servers is offset by 3 times as much renewable energy returned to the grid.

Green Host Your Site↗

We're planting trees!
The number in the site's top bar shows how many we've planted

To regenerate trees used to make our books, we donate a percentage of printed book sales to onetreeplanted.org.

Plant trees—donate to onetreeplanted.org↗

Page CO2 emissions
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Sustainable web strategies are used to reduce page load emissions.
The current industry standard is 0.5g/page view—all lifecentred.design pages aim to be less than the standard

Page accessibility rating
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Pages are designed for accessible use and rated out of 100

Read about our commitments

This will close in 0 seconds

LCD Lab aims to be low-carbon, inclusive, and regenerative

 

This site's hosting is green

This website runs on green hosting - verified by thegreenwebfoundation.org

Energy used by our web hosting servers is offset by 3 times as much renewable energy returned to the grid.

Green Host Your Site↗

We're planting trees!
The number in the site's top bar shows how many we've planted

To regenerate trees used to make our books, we donate a percentage of printed book sales to onetreeplanted.org.

Plant trees—donate to onetreeplanted.org↗

Page CO2 emissions
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Sustainable web strategies are used to reduce page load emissions.
The current industry standard is 0.5g/page view—all lifecentred.design pages aim to be less than the standard

Page accessibility rating
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Pages are designed for accessible use and rated out of 100

Read about our commitments

This will close in 0 seconds

LCD Lab aims to be low-carbon, inclusive, and regenerative

 

This site's hosting is green

This website runs on green hosting - verified by thegreenwebfoundation.org
Energy used by the web hosting servers is offset by 3 times as much renewable energy returned to the grid

Green Host Your Site↗</>

We're planting trees!
The number in the site's top bar shows how many we've planted

To regenerate trees used to make our books, we donate a percentage of printed book sales to onetreeplanted.org↗

Page CO2 emissions
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Sustainable web strategies are used to reduce page load emissions.
The current industry standard is 0.5g/page view—all lifecentred.design pages aim to be less than the standard

Page accessibility rating
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Pages are designed for accessible use and rated out of 100

More about our commitments

This will close in 0 seconds

LCD Lab aims to be low-carbon, inclusive, and regenerative

 

This site's hosting is green

This website runs on green hosting - verified by thegreenwebfoundation.org

Energy used by our web hosting servers is offset by 3 times as much renewable energy returned to the grid.

Green Host Your Site↗

We're planting trees!
The number in the site's top bar shows how many we've planted

To regenerate trees used to make our books, we donate a percentage of printed book sales to onetreeplanted.org.

Plant trees—donate to onetreeplanted.org↗

Page CO2 emissions
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Sustainable web strategies are used to reduce page load emissions.
The current industry standard is 0.5g/page view—all lifecentred.design pages aim to be less than the standard

Page accessibility rating
Shown for high-traffic pages only

Pages are designed for accessible use and rated out of 100

Read about our commitments

This will close in 0 seconds

I am the voice of the trees who were taken to make the product I speak from.

We, the trees, gave shade, clean air, homes for countless creatures, and the gift of oxygen for you to breathe. We cooled the earth, held the soil, and stored the carbon that would have otherwise harmed you.

Now, as a user of this product, you are part of this legacy, and a custodian of the things we once were. 

I ask you to honor the role we played for your planet. Where we are taken, help new trees rise, and protect those who still stand tall. Nurture them as they nurture you, for your future is rooted in our regeneration.

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds

Existing Users Log In
   

This will close in 0 seconds