Ethical Colour, what is it and why does it matter?

Colour is everywhere in design. Its ethics are almost nowhere.

This talk introduces ethical colour as an emerging design discipline — one that asks where colour comes from, what it costs, and who bears that cost.

Drawing on research across chromophobia, bio-colour science, circular pigment systems, and regulatory silence in the textile industry, the speakers make the case that colour is not an aesthetic afterthought but a design infrastructure with measurable social and environmental consequences.

Presented by researchers and practitioners working across Australia and the UK, the talk connects live dyeing research — including samples produced from post-consumer textile waste — to the broader question of what an ethical colour field could look like, and what it would demand of designers.

Accessible, provocative, and grounded in material evidence.