Perspectives on greener product development and manufacturing from Sustainable Minds, our partners, customers and contributors.

Marketing

Patagonia – A Good Model for a Post Consumer Era Manufacturing Company

By Guest contributors on February 22, 2010

This post by guest contributor Gerard Furbershaw, designer, speaker, co-founder and COO of LUNAR, first appeared on LUNAR’s blog. He has served as President and Chairman of the Board of the Association of Professional Design Firms, Chairman of the San Francisco chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America, and is a Trustee of the Design Foundation.

Manufacturing companies interested in transitioning to sustainable business models would benefit from considering what Patagonia has done. Through a combination of their values, mission, life cycle assessments, and actions, they have become pioneers on the path towards sustainability.

Sustainable Minds and MAGNET Partner to Advance Sustainability in Manufacturing

By Sustainable Minds on February 3, 2010

We are happy to announce a new partnership with MAGNET, The Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network, a professional organization that is focused on helping manufacturing and technology-based companies in Ohio adopt innovative methods and technologies.

Manufacturers are struggling to learn how to adopt sustainable practices in their current processes, and this partnership will help advance the adoption of greener product design practices for manufacturers. This partnership will also serve to assist Magnet’s eco-SMART Manufacturing Program to deliver education to Ohio manufacturers about sustainable manufacturing and ecoInnovation strategies.

Greenpeace releases its guide to greener electronics

By Sustainable Minds on January 25, 2010

Technology companies are starting to understand that sustainability is increasingly important to their customers. But as a consumer, how do you measure ‘green-ness’ across products that are sourced all over the world, and are combinations of processes that include hundreds of vendors? Recently, Greenpeace announced its ranking of 18 electronics companies at the Consumer Electronics Show (what better place?), along with a point-by-point breakdown of how they arrived at their scores. Categories include chemicals management , PVC-free and/or BFR-free models, voluntary take-back, use of recycled plastic content, and eleven more. This year, the leaders are Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia. Trailing the pack are Nintendo, Microsoft and Lenovo.
Read more

IDSA partnership aims to mainstream innovation in greener product design

By Sustainable Minds on January 11, 2010

Today we are excited to announce a new partnership with Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), the world’s oldest and largest association for product designers. IDSA and Sustainable Minds have made a commitment to work together to advance the adoption and integration of ecodesign and sustainability practices in product design.

Greener product design means designing the whole product system from a life cycle perspective. Understanding what this means and how to design this way is the first step.

We are bringing together important tools and education for members, including offering Sustainable Minds LCA software at a discount. The software enables rapid iteration and comparison of new product concepts, and provides quantified environmental performance information during the design process to help make design and manufacturing trade-off decisions.

Test your green-Q with our year-end trivia quiz

By Sustainable Minds on December 28, 2009

During these short days at the end of the year when you find yourself wondering what to do next (with or without all that company in your house), try this Green Trivia Quiz. It’s taken from our perusals of some of the quirkier green stories we’ve seen this year.

New in Sustainable Minds Release 1.1

By Sustainable Minds on December 16, 2009

Following on the heels of Release 1.0, we've made it easier for more people to find out, learn about and subscribe to Sustainable Minds. In this release:

  • Educator and student subscriptions
  • Affiliate referral program
  • Software enhancements

Educator and student subscriptions
As part of the Designers Accord community, and as 'Summit Sponsor' of the Global Summit on Design Education & Sustainability, we are committed to helping educators create undergraduate, graduate and professional development curriculum to integrate environmental sustainability into design, engineering and business programs.

Reflections: The Designers Accord global summit on sustainability & education

By Guest contributors on December 10, 2009

This post, which originally appeared on Core77, was submitted by guest contributor Andrea Mangini, a Lead Experience Designer for Adobe Systems, where she has spent the past decade specializing in "design for designers". Andrea is co-founder of Adobe's employee Green Team, and an advocate for sustainable design and innovation on behalf of her employers and users. Follow Andrea @jingleyfish. Sustainable Minds was the Summit Sponsor.

The future of digital TV could be a lot friendlier

By Lorne Craig on December 7, 2009

This fall, our family got Digital TV from our local service provider. I’ll call them ‘Telco’ - those of you south of the border, feel free to substitute your local Comcast-like corporation. The promo deal sucked us in, our friendly installer managed to figure out how to wire both ends of a 1920’s apartment without stapling cable everywhere and now we can vegetate digitally. (Of course, the first thing I did with this marvel of new technology was use the PVR to record a Space Channel marathon of 30-year-old Star Trek episodes.)

But even as the system was being assembled in our home, I wondered about its footprint. In order to decode and deliver the signals for digital TV and broadband Internet, we took delivery of: two set top boxes, a PVR, a wireless router, a network router and a switcher.

I wondered, how much power do they use? Are all the electronics compliant with RoHS? (the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive or RoHS adopted in 2003 by the EU that restricts the use of hazardous materials in electronics) What happens to these units when they needs to be replaced? And what happens to the leftover boxes, plastic and Styrofoam after installation?

The eight biggest myths about sustainability in business

By Vijay Kanal on November 30, 2009

In our research, and in engagements with dozens of Fortune 1000 companies, we are sometimes surprised at the reluctance to pursue environmental sustainability initiatives, because of misconceptions about their cost or benefits. But we have also seen how some companies have embraced sustainability whole-heartedly, and are profiting from it.

What is fair play when comparing product LCAs?

By Joep Meijer on November 20, 2009

You’ve just developed your eco-champion product and have set out to know everything about it. You’ve performed a full-fledged lifecycle analysis (LCA) – with all the bells and whistles – and have some vital results: the methodology report that describes your product, and the interpretation report, which explains the results.

You are all excited about the results. You feel the need to express yourself publicly. What better way to do that than in a comparison to other products? And the great game begins…

The Rules
Most games begin with the creation of rules. The ‘game’ of marketing sustainability is no different.

Is it fair to compare your sustainable product to someone else’s and not invite their input? Not really. In fact, ISO standards require that you involve relevant stakeholders to foster a positive conversation about the approach and the interpretation. One way to do that is for you and all stakeholders to sit together and write up a methodology report.