8.2 Sustainable Consumption

Essential idea:

Nature and Aims of Design

Sustainable consumption focuses on reducing the use of resources of a product to minimize its environmental impact.

Nature of Design

Designers develop products, services and systems that satisfy basic needs and improve quality of life. To meet sustainable consumption requirements, they must also minimize the use of natural resources, toxic materials and waste, and reduce emissions of pollutants at all stages of the life cycle. (2.10, 3.7)

Aims

Aim 5: It is not only the role of designers to create markets for sustainable products. Consumers need to change their habits and express a want and need for these products.

Guidance

As a student of Design Technology, you should be able to:

Consider eco-labelling and energy labelling schemes from different country contexts
Advantages and disadvantages of consumer and environmental pressure groups for the user, manufacturer and designer
How pressure groups exert influence for changes on these issues and support or undermine development of specific technologies
How consumer and environmental pressure groups can attract widespread support using the media (including social media)
How consumers have become increasingly aware of information provided by pressure groups and as markets have globalized, so has consumer power
Consider strategies for managing western consumption while raising the standard of living of the developing world without increasing resource use and environmental impact

Sustainable Consumption

Sustainable consumption seeks to reduce the environmental impact of a product or service. For designers, this means making design decisions that consider the environmental impact of a design, its manufacture, use, and end of life. Concepts such as LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) and Cradle to Cradle are part of this process. However, the focus here is on changing how consumers choose and use a product.

Consumer Attitudes towards sustainability

Attitudes towards sustainability differ from person to person, but can be classified into four broad categories.

Eco-Warrior

Actively demonstrate on environmental issues

Eco-Champions

Individuals or groups that champion environmental issues within organizations

Eco-Fans

Consumers who enthusiastically embrace environmentally practices and products

Eco-Phobes

Actively resent talk of environmental protection

Eco-labelling and energy labeling schemes

These labels provide information for the consumer on how the manufacture, use, and disposal of a product impacts the environment. In this regard, eco-labels provide consumers with a simplified LCA (Life-Cycle_analysis) that succinctly communicates the sustainability of the design. In short, eco-labelling schemes allow consumers to make informed choices.

eco-label index

Energy Labelling:

Energy Labelling focus on the energy efficiency and energy consumption of a product. They can vary depending on region and type of appliance, but in general they contain information about:

- - - the amount of energy consumed by the product
    - an energy rating
    - details about the product

Goals Of Eco-labels and Energy-labels

- Help consumers make informed choices
- Allow consumers to compare products
- Highlight energy efficient and sustainable designs, and thereby encourage companies to serve towards these goals.

European Union energy label

Creating a Market for sustainable products

Pricing considerations

- - Consumers need to know that a product will provide value-for-money for them.

Long-term costs

- - Sustainable products may provide consumers with long-term financial gain, despite a higher initial investment. LED and Compact-Fluro lights are more expensive to produce and have a higher retail price than incandescent light bulbs. However, their longer life and lower energy usage provides results in lower costs for consumers.

Stimulating demand

- - The benefit of purchasing a sustainable product needs to be clear to the consumer. It needs to be of similar or better quality and priced competitively. Companies may choose to promote the product by highlighting its sustainability.

Production of green products

- - Production of green products can take advantage of TBL (Triple-Bottom-Line) approaches to sustainability. Sustainable production methods, many requiring radical changes to manufacturing or materials can help a company achieve this goal.

Pressure Groups

Pressure groups promote positive change to meet their goals. They are not a market segment in the sense that a company would market to them; However, they influence consumer opinion and choices, and consequently the decisions about their products. These groups leverage social media to attract support at local and global levels.

Advantages

Raise public awareness of environmental issues
Able to advocate for minority groups
Ensure governments and companies are responsive to the needs and wishes of the community
Push companies and governments to develop and/or adopt sustainable approaches

Disadvantages

Pressure groups may not represent all wishes of a community; They can present a biased view
Manufacturers may have to bear the cost of developing new products or processes in response to pressure groups.
Policies or legislation may be revoked or changed when different political groups and pressure groups take power.

Lifestyle and Ethical Consumerism

Lifestyle Consumerism

Lifestyle Consumerism prioritizes the purchase of products and accumulation of "things." This consumerism takes place without regard for environmental impact of the products or services.

Ethical Consumerism

Ethical consumerism prioritizes the purchase of products that were ethically produced and do not harm the environment or society. The include products such as organic foods, fair-trade food and products, energy efficient appliances, furniture produced from recycled or sustainable materials, and renewable energy sources.

LEGO has responded to demands for ethical consumerism by moving more of its production from ABS plastic to bioplastics, and by powering its factories with 100%renewable energy.

TOM’s shoes seek to raise the standard of living in the developing world.

Take-back legislation

Take-back legislation mandates that companies and manufacturers are responsible for the collection, recycling, and disposal of their products in an environmentally safe manner. Different regions around the world implement take-back legislation to varying degrees.

Designers can consider take-back legislation for the design products by:

- - Moving from a cradle-to-grave approach to cradle-to-cradle approach
  - Designing for disassembly
  - Considering how a design might be re-used or recycled

Manufacturers can consider take-back legislation by:

- - Considering more sustainable manufacturing techniques
  - Working with designers to optimize design for disassembly and recycling of the product
  - developing collection systems to take-back products when they have reached end of life.
  - develop methods for managing, recycling, or re-using collected items in the manufacture of new products.

Consumers

- - may incur additional costs, either added to the purchase price by the manufacturer to account for recovery, of at the end of life by the government for collection

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