The story of Sustainable UX and the SUX Network started a bunch of years ago. And it is tightly connected with my personal story and started back in 2017: I remember walking through the streets of Copenhagen late in the evening (I was visiting my sister) and reflecting about my current job as the UX Director and a digital agency, about the situation in the world and how my job is a nice job but does not change anything about that. That is when I for the first time thought about the term "Sustainable UX". But it took a few more years and a personal crises until that resulted in concrete action.

One important basis for my personal work on sustainable UX and therefore also for my work at the SUX Network. Back in 2017 I saw a talk by Kevin Slavin at The Conference in Malmö. He was speaking about participatory design and also about how we need to get beyond User-Centricity. His thoughts made me think a lot and I still see this as the first push into how to make UX sustainable and to create ideas and concepts for sustainable UX.

End of 2018 my Burnout kicked in and I had to take a break from work for 4 month. As part of my recovery I walked the Camino (St James Way) in Spain and after returning from my pilgrimage and getting back to the job I felt that it is time to change something. The feeling grow to do something more meaningful with my skills instead of "just" building the next digital products. In 2019 I gave my first talk about Responsibility as a Designer at an Adobe Lifestream and at the UX Camp Europe 2020 the first talk about "Sustainable UX". And in October 2021 I had the honor to speak at the Adobe MAX conference.

This talk at Adobe MAX 2021 is the point where the SUX Network started. The talk described the idea and the need to Sustainability in UX and was an invitation to a project called "The Sustainable UX Manifesto". A group of designers (Isabel Pettinato, Bavo Lodewyckx, Alice Markmann, Simone Brauner, Chris Stark, Sandy Dähnert, and me Thorsten Jonas) created a workshop format to work on Sustainability in UX based on the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. This was from the beginning a very important part for us at SUX: Sustainability is more than "just" carbon emissions". 120 Designers from around the world joined in this decentralized workshop-project using a workshop templated to research on the relationship of UX and Sustainability and to develop ideas how to drive Sustainability through UX.

In 2022 the project transformed step by step into a global Community and initiative for designers from around the world to get together, to share ideas and knowledge and to learn from each other. The "Sustainable UX Network" was formed. Also in 2022 Sustainable UX entered the stages of the the Design Conference scene with talks at UX Copenhagen, PUSH 22 in Munich or The World Usability Day Estonia in Tallinn and at this time the Principles of the Sustainable UX as we at the SUX Network define it (https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/the-11-principles-of-sustainable-ux), started to form step by step in this time. If you watch one of the talks from this time you will find most of the final principles set and defined by then. This shows also an important aspect of the work I personally do as well as how we work at the SUX Network: things grow and develop over time.

In addition in 2022 we started to facilitate a series of workshops at conferences, at universities and at other occasions, where participants used UX methodologies to understand the impact of digital experiences to the different aspects of sustainability based on the Sustainable Development Goals. This methodology was also used for university projects, where students focussed on one of the Sustainable Development Goals and developed ideas how to tackle it.

In 2023 the SUX Network introduced the SUX Resource Database. A free and open collection collection of all kinds of resources related to sustainability and Design. And it is growing - we add new resources and also community members can submit resources. Meanwhile the database grew up to almost 200 resources, including tools developed by us as well as any other helpful resources, tools or frameworks. Designers can search for tools by design phases as well as other criteria to make it as easy as possible for everybody to find tools that help them the most in their current situation or context. Because that is another important learning over the past years: there is not one tool for all. Rather it is about to find the right tools the current step in the design/build process or the context of the product/project.

At this time we also started to work on specific SUX-tools as a learning from our work. Some are new tools like the SUX Needs to Consequences Mapping or the SUX Sustainable User Journey Mapping while others are modifications of existing tools like SUX Actor Mapping (inspired by Monica Sznel) or SUX Non Human-/Non-User Personas (inspired by Damien Lutz). These first tools are also the basis for the upcoming SUX Playbook that is in the making at the moment.

In 2023 we also started to organize events. We organized and hosted an online event for the 24 hours of UX and facilitated a panel discussion for the World Usability Day 2023, discussing about how collaboration and cooperation are key for sustainability. In 2024 we organized the World Usability Day Event in Hamburg, with the local UX Roundtable, a physical event with 200 participants. In Amsterdam we organized a Sustainable UX and Design event together with Sera Tajima / The Craft and IKEA.

Based on this we also started setting up and organizing local events and local chapters of SUX. In 2024 the first local chapter was founded in Copenhagen and we had the first SUX Dinner in April in Amsterdam (followed by the event at IKEA in September 2024). In the end of 2024 the SUX Chapter Bremen was founded and more chapters in various European cities are going to follow in 2025. Also in 2025 we started with our SUX Monthly - an open monthly online get-together for everybody who is looking for exchange and inspiration about Sustainable UX and Digital Sustainability. Subscribe to our Newsletter or check out our events-site if you do not want to miss any of the upcoming events.

2024 was also the year were we founded the SUX Academy, a place where designers and product people can learn how to use Sustainable UX in their daily work to create sustainable digital products and experiences. We offer Masterclasses for individual designers as well as design- and product-teams and we are preparing a self-paced, self-study online course at the moment. In 2025 we are expanding our set of courses to the field of Responsible AI with a special Masterclasses about Sustainable and Responsible in Gen AI (find all infos about our courses the SUX Academy).

It has been already journey until here and there is a lot more to come. Sustainability is not a sprint, it is a Marathon. Therefore we have a bunch of plans for 2025 and 2026 already. Besides the new SUX Chapters we already plan a handful of events. And as mentioned above I am working on the SUX Playbook at the moment: a practical handbook and framework to use Sustainable UX for building and designing sustainable digital product and experiences. Find the first tools of the Playbook, including ready to use templates already published a at our Notion space and stay tuned for the full playbook to be launched soon.

The SUX Network is a non-profit network, community and organization. Our mission is to make Sustainability default in all product and experience design and building processes and to provide a space where designers can come together. We believe in the strength if the community and are looking forward to the upcoming journey. For me personally the most important thing about my work as well as the work for and within the SUX Network is to get together with with like-minded, wonderful and inspiring people from all around the world. We all together are strong and can make a significant impact.

And therefore I invite you to join the community in whatever way you want: Join our Slack Space or just sign up to our Newsletter. Or go a little further and setup a local SUX Chapter in your city or become a volunteer and help us running the SUX Network and making Sustainability a default in digital products and experiences.

Thorsten Jonas is the Founder of the SUX Network and SUX Academy and a Sustainable UX and Responsible AI consultant and keynote speaker. He is guiding teams and companies in crafting sustainable, responsible and ethical digital products and co-leads as invited expert the UX Chapter of the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines.