8.3 Sustainable design
Essential idea: Sustainable design is a philosophy of developing products in line with social, economic, and ecological sustainability principles.
Essential idea:
Sustainable design is a philosophy of developing products in line with social, economic, and ecological sustainability principles.
Nature and Aims of Design
Nature of Design
The first step to sustainable design is to consider a product, service or system in relation to eco-design and analyse its impact using life cycle analysis. The designer then develops these to minimize environmental impacts identified from this analysis. Considering sustainability from the beginning of the process is essential. (2.8)
Aims
Aim 10: Datschefski’s five principles of sustainable design equip the designer with a tool not only to design new products, but also to evaluate an existing product. This can lead to new design opportunities and increase the level at which a product aligns with these principles.
Guidance
As a student of design, you should
Understand and describe the differences between green design and sustainable design
Recognize the differences in timescale between green design and sustainable design
Identify and describe Datschefski's 5 principles of sustainable design
Concepts and Principles
Green design versus sustainable design
Increasingly, manufacturers are recognizing that the environmental and sustainability impact of their designs are becoming important factors in consumer's purchasing decisions. Government and social pressures are also creating a need for designers and manufacturers to meet the demands for "green" or "sustainable" products.
In design, it is important to understand the distinction between Green Design and Sustainable Design.
Green Design
Green design is focused on reducing or eliminating any negative environmental impact of a design.
Typically focused on a single product
Cradle to Grave approach to design: The product life-cycle ends with its disposal in a way that limits or reduces environmental impact; There is no "new life" for the product or its component parts.
Short Timescale: Strategies are focused almost exclusively on the product itself and not a great deal on the systems or people around it. Strategies that support a short timescale are typically easier and cheaper to implement for manufacturers.
Small changes to a product are required to make it green. For example:
Switching to a recyclable material,
Reducing packaging
Reducing materials (light-weighting)
Reducing energy consumption
Sustainable Design
Sustainable design is focused more on the whole system surrounding a product or service. It deals with the interaction of economic, environmental health, and social equity factors. Sustainable design is more philosophical in approach than green design.
Typically more complex and challenging to achieve.
Focused on the systems around a product
Cradle to Cradle (C2C) approach to design: Design decisions are not focused exclusively on the product, but on the resources used to create it, it's manufacture and distribution, and the social and economic systems it supports (or creates).
Long Timescale: Sustainable design typically requires much more research into the materials, processes, systems, etc. At minimum, sustainable approaches need to be embraced at the company or industry level--simply focusing on one product cannot achieve recognition as sustainable design.
Significant changes to systems are usually needed to achieve sustainable design goals. For example:
selecting materials that are sustainably and equitably harvested or extracted
reduction of the environmental impact of manufacturing and distribution of the product (i.e. solar powered manufacturing, local as opposed to international manufacture and distribution)
Shift from a business model that prioritizes financial reward to one that is focused on triple bottom line (TBL) factors such as Social Benefits, Economic Benefits, and Environmental Benefits.
Datschefski’s five principles of sustainable design
Datschefski's book, The total beauty of sustainable products, introduces new principles by which sustainable designs should be evaluated. These five principles are:
There are strong connections between Cradle to Cradle design (C2C) and Datschefski's principals. Both approaches have the same essential goal which is to envision and facilitate an approach to design that goes beyond the design of a single product, but the design of sustainable environmental, economic, and social systems.
Resources:
DATSCHEFSKI, EDWIN. “Sustainable Products: Using Nature ' s Cyclic|solar|safe Protocol for Design, Manufacturing and Procurement.” BioThinking, June 1999, http://www.biothinking.com/sustainable_products1.pdf