Explaining the environmental benefits of product longevity is pretty simple. For instance, as long as the impacts of the product during its use phase stay constant, then doubling the product lifetime usually cuts the impacts in half. It is easy to run the numbers and produce the charts that demonstrate the reduced environmental impacts that result from extending product life. It is a bit more challenging to help a client realize how this approach might benefit their bottom line.

Designers have been helping clients understand the economic value of good design for decades. Since much of the work of extending product lifetime equates to good design, we can tap into our own experience when it comes to educating others about longevity.

For instance, many years ago, when I idealistically began my design career, I was involved in designing a multi-bit screwdriver. The client’s innovation allowed the bits to be securely organized in the handle without rattling. I confess to being a bit disenchanted to be working on something so, well….unexciting. I left to take another position before the first prototype came back from manufacture.

Several years later, I encountered the resulting product, and was forced to reassess my view of design, for here was a product that asserted simple quality. Someone had followed through on the manufacturing; the screwdriver was built to high tolerances, and from quality materials. The handle opened easily, and clicked shut with a satisfying thunk. The screwdriver had a solid heft, and didn’t rattle annoyingly, unlike other multi-bits of the day. I promptly bought them as gifts for all of my family. Eighteen years later, all of them still have and use this product (except for one brother, who lost his). Meanwhile, the client (MegaPro) and design firm (Karo and then White Box Design) developed an ongoing relationship that has since taken the product through several iterations – including the contractor’s version and the kitchen drawer version – which expand the product’s market reach without rendering prior models obsolete.