"Just remember that every day you live, you make an impact on the planet."
- Jane Goodall
Welcome to this edition of the SUX Newsletter. After a highly intense fourth quarter I want to reflect about this year for SUX, share some thoughts about the year and give you a little overview about what we achieved. As a thank you and little Christmas treat I also have a holiday discount for the next Masterclasses in February. So, what can you expect in this newsletter:
- My Thought of the Month - a reflection of this year for SUX
- A release date for the SUX Playbook and you can sign up to get informed once we release
- A short update about the new season of the SUX Podcast
- The next Masterclasses “Sustainable UX” and “Sustainability & Ethics in Gen AI” in February - including a 20% “thank you to the community” discount
- A recap of the events we organized or joined as SUX Network
- And most important: a special thank you to the people who help running the SUX Network
🌿 Thought of the month: What a year, again
One year ago I chose the title“What a year” for the Newsletter reflecting about 2024. Now another year is over and I am looking back and again I am thinking: “What a year”...
“The world is on the edge” says a slide I am using quite often in my talks at the moment. Deniers of the climate catastrophe get more and more power in politics. Fascists are on the rise in many parts of the world. And big tech is pushing the AI fairy tale far away from true facts about its negative impacts and its true value.
When I am looking at my LinkedIn feed, every day I see the same postings telling how great and easy it is to “create” images, texts or now even videos with AI. Funny thing is: the people doing such posting are most often not designers, they never learned the craft. And looking at what they created, you can see that. It is most often mediocre to bad. Or I see postings about how “you can lift your design game to the next level” or that “vibe coding is so great” again and again.
But how valuable and usable a vibe-coded website is - from what I read from developers, the code is most often crappy, which means a vibe-coded website might be usable as a prototype, but not as a ready to ship product. Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to blame anybody. It just makes me sad, how the big tech narrative of “great AI” is so willingly repeated by so many people again and again.
AI can be a great tool for some use cases. It is not for many other use cases. And it is definitely not the answer for everything. Hallucination rates grow with the complexity of the model, the energy consumption is so high that we do not know how to produce the energy necessary to power all the datacenters that run these huge LLMs and the water consumption of AI in 2025 has been bigger than the amount of bottle water.
The price for Gen AI is absurdly high - but unfortunately invisible. While the output is much less “great” than the public narrative tries to tell us.
And that is the connection to the general situation we are in. I spoke a lot about narratives this year. Because in the end it is narratives that drive us. A good story beats the data. Otherwise we would not debate the climate catastrophe or social injustice. In 2025 there were too many people telling simple stories that are lies, but were so simple and appealing that people followed it. Being it in elections, being it in our daily life or being in the tech we use.
And the tech we use is an important part in this. Since it is not only about the Narratives told about for example AI and how great it is, but also about how this tech itself can be and is used to shape general narratives. So many people rely so much on the big public Gen AI models that are mainly trained by the data of the global north. Or that can be manipulated directly or indirectly by the people controlling it (as for example Elon Musk already did).
The tech we use is highly political. And looking back to this year, I personally too often see a discussion that is about designing for these tools (like “Designers now need to learn how to design for and with AI”). As if these are “god-given”. They are not and we should much more often discuss HOW we SHAPE these tools instead of how we use it. It is our decisions that shape the world. One talk I did this year in Paris, in Munich and in Berlin had the title “Each Design is a manifesto for the future”. And I think we all should be much more aware of the power of our day to day decisions.
And with this I want to shift to the positive aspects of this year. And yes there are many. As you might know, I meet a lot of people throughout the year. I visit many events and conferences, I do a lot of talks and workshops and trainings about these topics and I have a lot of conversations (second year in a row I travelled more than 30.000km by train 🚅). And I took a lot of hope and energy from meeting so many wonderful people and having so many inspiring conversations.
And I can see from my talks that if we tell good stories, if we put complex topics into simple narratives, we can make people think and convince them to question some of the things they do or how they use tools like AI. Narratives are driving us, but we can use this as an advantage. And we are not alone. There are so many like-minded people all around the world.
In December I visited the Green IO conference in Paris. It was my last trip in 2025. I was already pretty exhausted from all the travels, especially in Q4 - but it was so empowering and energizing to meet so many like-minded people.
So, though I am really exhausted and also frustrated from many things I saw and see, I am hopeful for 2026, because I believe in the power of narratives, in the power of every small decision and in the power of the community.
After reflecting about 2025, in the next Newsletter I will write about the plans and ideas for SUX and beyond for 2026 and how I hope we all can be part of a journey into a positive future and how we can actively shape it. I am really hopeful, still I also believe that now is the time to become active and to act. Every day. 💚
📚 SUX Playbook and SUX Resource Database
The SUX Playbook is in the making and the plan is to release a first version for free by the end of January 2026. You can browse the first tools already and you can also sign up the waitlist to get informed immediately when we release.
SUX Playbook Release 31 Jan 2026 - All Infos, first Tools and Waitlist
We have already re-released existing public SUX-Tools with PDF- and Miro-Templates, ready to use. You can find the tools behind the link as well.
In addition to the work on the SUX Playbook we added more resources to our SUX resource database. Check out the latest tools here (you can find the recently added resources at the bottom of the page: https://suxnetwork.notion.site
🎙 SUX Podcast: Top Episodes 2025
At the moment we are preparing the new season of the SUX Podcast. First recordings have been made and we plan to start the new season in January. While you wait for the new episodes, let’s have a look back to 2025. This year we crossed the mark of 10.000 plays overall. This was a great step for us. We are not running the podcast for commercial reasons, but as a side project to bring great voices in design, digital sustainability and responsible AI to you, the SUX community. So, even more, we celebrated this important step and it was wonderful for us to see the interest of you all in our podcast.
The next episode is already recorded, so expect the new season to kick off in January. And until then, I want to give you three recommendations from our existing episodes for the holidays:
Episode 19: Changemakers with Maria Giudice
Episode 14: AI and Digital Sustainability with Tom Greenwood
Episode 13: A fossil free Internet with Hannah Smith
🎓 Get a 20% “Holiday Discount” on the upcoming February Masterclasses
We started the SUX Academy in 2024 with the idea to teach Sustainable UX to you, the community. To make the class as accessible as possible we established the principle of highly reduced “low-income” tickets that we offer on a trust basis. In 2025 we offered our Masterclass “Become a Sustainable UX Designer” on a frequent basis.
In addition we added a new Masterclass: “Sustainability & Ethics in Gen AI”. And this one is not only for designers and UX people but for everyone who is using Gen AI in his or her daily work.
Besides the open Masterclasses we also offer a specific format for design- and product-teams for both Masterclasses. And we are really happy that companies like Siemens or Ahold Delhaize trusted our expertise. It is these bookings by organizations that help us to provide low-income tickets and keep the price of the Masterclass as low as possible and also to run the SUX Network, provide the resources or the SUX Playbook.
For 2026 we will continue the Masterclasses and are working on additional formats (more about that in the next weeks). In February we will do the next Masterclasses and as a thank to you - the SUX Community - we want to give you a 20% discount on both Masterclasses.
Masterclass: „Become a Sustainable UX Designer“
- Date: Feb 3+5, 5:00-7:00pm CET
- Place: Online
- Tickets: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/events/masterclass-sustainable-ux-individual
- Discount: get 20% off with Code „SUX_xmas“
Masterclass: „Sustainability & Ethics in Gen AI“
- Date: Feb 17, 5:00-7:30pm CET
- Place: Online
- Tickets: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/events/masterclass-sustainability-ethics-ai
- Discount: get 20% off with Code „SUX_xmas“
📆 2025 Event-Recap
In 2025 we organized a bunch of events and also attended events and conferences. For 2026 we plan even more events (concrete plannings already involve Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, Munich) to get together with the community and to work together on different topics. Some of the Highlights of 2025 have been:
- Organized local events in Copenhagen, Hamburg, Bremen
- First SUX "Impact Walk" in Copenhagen
- Co-Host and -Organizer of the World Usability Event in Hamburg
- SUX Booth at PUSH UX and Green IO Munich
- Part of NGO workshop at Green IO Paris together with 21 NGOs from all over Europe
- Organizer and Host of a handful of Online Events
🙏 A special thank you to the people helping to drive SUX
There is a bunch of people who helped and are helping to drive SUX. Being with organizing local events, doing the branding and the website, updating the resource database, helping with the SUX booth or online events. Without YOU wonderful people SUX in 2025 would not be possible. Thank you all so much for being part of this journey:
Isabel Pettinato : Isa is the Mastermind behind the SUX Branding and the SUX Website. If you need a brand or UI designer, you should definately get in touch with her.
Nadja Bozovic : Nadja updated the whole SUX resources database, adding detail information and links for almost 200 pieces and represents the network as SUX Ambassador.
Stine Ramsing : Stine ran the SUX Copenhagen until this year and is a SUX Ambassador. Now she is doing something even more important as she became a mother.
Christina Cassens and Gul Bibi : Chris and Gul tool over the SUX Copenhagen chapter from Stine.
Simon Fenske : Simon organized the events in Bremen and represents SUX also as SUX Ambassador
Ingo Waclawczyk : IS a long year supporter and SUX Ambassador and also helped to run the SUX Booth at PUSH UX this year.
Meghan Logan : Meghan organized our online event in the beginning of the year and is also a SUX Ambassador
Juliane Zirke : Juliane helped to run the SUX Booth at Green IO as well as PUSH UX.
Carolina Klaas : Caroline helped to run the SUX Booth at Green IO
Thank you all so much for being part of this journey! 🙏💚
🌿 SUX Keynotes, Workshops or Trainings for your organization:
Are you looking for a keynote, a workshop or a training session about Sustainable UX or Responsible AI? We offer these for any kind of organization. In fact this helps to finance the SUX Network and all of its non-profit work. Find all information about how we can support your organization here: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/business
💡 Did you know
The carbon footprint of AI in 2025 is as big as that of New York City. And the water footprint of AI in 2025 is bigger than the global annual consumption of bottled water.
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666389925002788
Thank you for reading all the way down here. 🙌
While this newsletter mainly is a reflection about the past year, in the next Newsletter I will speak in detail about what you can expect in 2026.
And if you have any feedback, thoughts, or want to share something, please reach out to me on Slack or on LinkedIn. 🙏
See you,
👋 Thorsten
Founder of the SUX Network & Co-Author of the Web Sustainability Guidelines, Keynote Speaker, Sustainable UX Trainer, Digital Sustainability Trailblazer and Responsible AI Advocate. Get in touch if you want to work with me or book me for a talk, workshop or training. And follow me on LinkedIn, where I share frequently tips, resources and thoughts about Digital Sustainability, Responsible AI and Sustainable UX.
🌏 SUX Community Count:
🌐 SUX Website: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/
🎓 SUX Academy: https://sustainableuxnetwork.com/academy
📧 Get in touch: info@sustainableuxnetwork.com
