Embedded Files
Conceptual Understanding: Designers develop products, services and systems that satisfy basic needs and improve quality of life. To meet sustainable consumption requirements, they must also minimise the use of natural resources, toxic materials and waste, and reduce emissions of pollutants at all stages of the life cycle.
Eco-warriors
Actively demonstrate on environmental issues.
Eco-warriors protest anything that is damaging to the environment (such as animal cruelty and pollution). Greenpeace is an environmental organisation that actively supports those protests and usually organises or joins them. Examples of protests are members chaining themselves to trees and throwing red paint on fur coats.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a non-profit, marine conservation organization based in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, Washington, in the US.
Earth Day was established in 1970, but the entertainment industry has been active in the fight for the planet for since the 1960s consciousness raising movements had helped put ecological awareness into the forefront.
Eco-champions
Champion environmental issues within organisations.
Several actors, producers, writers and directors have all gone beyond just giving lip service to causes, by launching foundations, making films, advocating tirelessly and using their high profiles to educate the world about the Earth’s dwindling resources.
Eco-fans
Enthusiastically adopt environmentally friendly practices as consumers.
An Eco-fan is someone who accepts all new technological advancements for green design on the current market.
An eco-fan will buy almost anything that is environmentally friendly and will never buy a harmful product.
Products include, dolphin friendly tuna, aerosol spray cans that do not contain CFC propellants, cosmetics that have not been tested on animals, products packaged in environmentally friendly materials
Eco-phobes
Actively resent talk of environmental protection
Eco-phobes are people who are against helping the environment and purposely go against the ecological movements.
They believe that the environmental problems are irrelevant to their lives, and some even believe that it is a scam.
But let's look at the possible causes instead of the definitions.
Eco-labelling: The labelling of products to demonstrate that they are better for the environment than other products.
This label means that the product in question is very environmentally friendly. Many products now are labeled according to how environmentally friendly they are. Such labelling schemes have come about as a result of legislation and consumer pressure. They enable the consumer to compare potential purchases and make an informed choice.
The European Union Eco-labelling Board (EUEB) grants this label. Every product group has to meet high environmental and performance standards. Ecological criteria for each product depend on the basis of life cycle considerations (LCC) taken from a "cradle-to-grave" view of environmental impact.
U.S. independent standards for products, services, and companies are based on life-cycle research. Green Seal standards provide criteria and guidelines for manufacturers, service providers, and companies to work toward sustainability. Green Seal has 31 issued standards that cover over 375 product and service categories.
U.S. government agency eco-labels. For example, Energy stars, which is a joint program of the EPA and the Department of Energy that promotes energy efficient products and practices. The Nutriclean label means that products are tested for pesticides within specified limits.
In Australia, GECA is an independent label committed to credible product information for sustainable development. The Good Environmental Choice Label is the only environmental labelling program in Australia which indicates the environmental performance of a product during its complete lifecycle.
Advantages
For consumers, they're a shortcut to doing good: they're an easy Âto Âuse, trustworthy guide to products that help the environment in some way.
Second, for manufacturers, eco labels offer a potential point of difference and a competitive advantage. Many consumers take environmental performance into account so if a product looks eco friendly and doesn't cost much more, it's more likely to be lifted off the shelf. For manufacturers, making eco-friendly products can make commercial sense.
Third, labels encourage a general raising of environmental performance, even among products that aren't labeled. In simpler words, if environmentally friendly products sell better, all manufacturers have an incentive to produce them—and standards rise overall.
Disadvantages
The biggest problem with a growing interest in ethical shopping is that manufacturers may be tempted to make exaggerated or misleading claims, which confuse consumers into thinking products are better than they really are.
Instead of raising standards, the result is confusion among consumers and a systematic undermining of all eco-friendly products (including genuine ones). This, of course, is exactly the problem that properly certified eco labels are designed to solve.
For the system to work, ecoÂ-labels need to be trustworthy, trusted, simple to understand, and easy Âto Ârecognise.
Energy labelling schemes
The labelling of products to show how energy efficient they are.
The label displays information in four categories:
The product's details
Energy classification that shows the product's electrical consumption
Measurements relating to consumption, efficiency and capacity etc,
Noise emitted from the product when in use.
We need to consider how Energy labelling is different in different countries.
European Union
If a company manufactures or sells household electrical equipment within the European Union, it must provide customers with the energy efficiency rating of your products by having a clear labelling on the product. As a consumer, if you are buying a household electrical item the energy efficiency rating should be displayed clearly on the product to help you make a better informed decision.
Australia
The Good Environmental Choice Label is the only environmental labelling program in Australia which indicates the environmental performance of a product during its complete lifecycle. The label is awarded to products that meet voluntary environmental performance standards which have been created and assessed in comparison to international environmental labelling standards
Creating a market for sustainable products
Many shoppers want green products, but retailers and brand marketers are losing green sales at several key points along the path to a purchase. The largest opportunities to capture shoppers interested in green products involve;
Building awareness,
Educating shoppers,
Making green products easier to find and recognise,
Enhancing in-store communications and
Inspiring shoppers at the store shelf.
As consumers increasingly demand green products, there is an incentive for marketers to offer them. It is important for firms to understand when consumers choose these products, and how to market them effectively.
Ultimately it is the consumers choice as to which products they will buy (often based on price alone). It is important to create a market for sustainable products through the following:
Price at Purchase
Long Term Costs
Education
Pressure groups
Collections of individuals who hold a similar viewpoint on a particular topic, for example the environment, who take action to promote positive change to meet their goals.
A pressure group tries to influence public policy in the interest of a particular cause to help the environment. Consumer and environmental pressure groups can attract widespread support using the media (including social media). Consumers have become increasingly aware of information provided by these organisations and, as markets have globalised, so has consumer power.
Advantages of pressure groups:
Pressure groups are a vital link between the government and the governed. They keep governments more responsive to the wishes of the community, especially in between elections.
Pressure groups are able to express the views of minority groups in the community who might not otherwise receive a hearing.
Disadvantages of pressure groups:
Some pressure groups are not democratic in themselves.
Some have powerful, but unrepresentative leaders who may not be representative of anyone but themselves. Some leaders do not reflect the opinions of their organisation's members.
Lifestyle and Ethical consumerism
Lifestyle consumerism: A social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever greater amounts.
Being a lifestyle consumer includes consumer behaviours. Lifestyle is a way to segment people into groups based on three things: opinions, attitudes and activities.
Lifestyle means the ways groups of consumers spend time and money. It usually has a preferred criteria of brand due to recognition or reputation of the product (trust, product origin and company reputation).
Other factors include:
the availability of product (habit)
the price of product rather than eco-label or energy label (consumer lifestyle)
the purchase of the product with the higher efficiency may influence the consumer by cost saving over the life, durability or impact on the ecosystem (e.g. reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of the product)
Ethical consumerism: The practice of consciously purchasing products and services produced in a way that minimises social and environmental damage, while avoiding those that have a negative impact on society and the environment.
Being an ethical consumer means buying products which were ethically produced and/or which are not harmful to the environment and society.
E.g. Fair-trade coffee or buying free-range eggs or as complex as boycotting goods produced by child labour and watching your food miles: how much energy was used getting the product to you? Products which fall into the ethical category include organic produce, fair trade goods, energy-efficient light bulbs, electricity from renewable energy, recycled paper and wood products with Forest Stewardship Council approval.
Take back legislation
Take back legislation puts the impetus on manufacturers to deal with the product or waste at the end of its lifecycle.
This can mean providing opportunities for recycling and collection, providing information to the consumer about disposal or directly dealing with the obsolete product.
Implications of take-back legislation for designers and manufacturers:
Take back legislation is the legislation that holds manufacturers responsible for the environmentally safe recycling or disposal of their end-of-life products. They are expected to provide a financial and/or physical plan to ensure that such products are collected and processed. For instance some legislation asks consumers to work with manufacturers to return products themselves for recycling.
Once companies have to take products back, they become immediately interested in design for disassembly and recyclability because they are the ones doing the disassembling and recycling
Manufacturers and designers have to make design changes that reduce waste, such as improving product recyclability and reusability, reducing material usage, and downsizing products.
For instance, if a product has to be taken back and recycled by the manufacturers, it would be most advantageous for them to ensure the original design can be readily disassembled.
Special care has to be taken with the choice of materials, costs, parts in order to make it easier for manufacturers to collect and recycle products.
Some European countries have laws where stores must accept used packaging (from their store) on the spot. Customers love it because trash collection bills are very high in Europe and if you can leave your waste packaging at the store, you save money. The result? Increased customer satisfaction and an immediate reduction in product packaging.
Implications of take-back legislation for consumers
If the cost of recycling a product is included in its price consumers can make more informed decisions about buying
Some European countries have laws where stores must accept used packaging (from their store) on the spot. Customers love it because trash collection bills are very high in Europe and if you can leave your waste packaging at the store, you save money. The result? Increased customer satisfaction and an immediate reduction in product packaging
Consider strategies for managing western consumption while raising the standard of living of the developing world without increasing resource use and environmental impact.
In industrialised countries, the consumption patterns of cities are severely stressing the global ecosystem while settlements in the developing world need more raw material, energy, and economic development simply to overcome basic economic and social problems.
Page updated
Report abuse