Sustainable Minds: Ask the Experts

I am an industrial design student and I am learning about the problems with consumerism and the environment. It makes me wonder if I am in the wrong profession. Can you give me some advice?

lstpierre — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:53:33 -0500

Thank you for that timely and important question. Assuming that you are studying industrial design because it is your passion, I can offer: Fourteen reasons why, in a time of ecological crisis, we need industrial designers more than ever.

1. A maturing profession
The industrial design profession has redefined itself numerous times over the past half-decade in response to cultural shifts, and is now integrating sustainable design thinking and methodologies. This growth is evident in recent conferences, journals and pledges such as The Designer’s Accord. As designers, we are doing important work, and you can help.

2. Good design is an imperative
Poor design results in waste that we cannot afford. Every poorly designed object will be underutilized, broken or discarded sooner than a well-designed object. Bring on the good industrial designers!

My company designs and offers a range of products and services. How can we decide which products to redesign next year to make them greener?

pwhite — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:07:38 -0500

Despite the extreme turbulence in the economy and the resulting insecurity felt by product development groups in nearly all market sectors, many companies still have budgets to develop new products starting at the beginning of the new year. Counter-intuitively, economic shockwaves reverberating through the markets can liberate product managers to find new market strategies.

Managers are increasingly under pressure to adopt novel ways to intelligently address the needs of users in their respective markets. Offering greener products are one of the primary ways that companies can substantively differentiate themselves from their competitors. The question on the minds of product managers is “Which products have the most potential to improve their value by improving environmental performance?” Product managers, marketing directors and the entire product development team should carefully ponder this question.

Question: With so many companies jumping on the ‘green bandwagon,’ what governmental agencies or industry groups are working to keep them honest?

sbelletire — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:05:18 -0500

It should come as no surprise that surveys of consumers indicate a strong desire for verifiable green marketing claims. For the past two years claims of ‘green marketing’ have expanded to a point where consumers have become overloaded regarding such marketing claims. Recent consumer marketing data confirms the skepticism related to this overload.

In July of 2008 the Gandalf Group spoke with 1500 adult Canadians about their views and attitudes regarding the impact of environmental issues. The responses indicate that design teams and marketers need to pay greater attention to consumer attitudes if they hope to connect with consumers concerning ecodesign strategies.

The results:

Most Canadians say there are so many conflicting claims about the environment that they’re not sure what to believe.
Canadians overwhelmingly want regulation and labeling to clear up the confusion. They want to know:
- What is just a marketing ploy?
- What is legitimately environmentally friendly?
Eighty-five percent of Canadians want standards enforced on producers and labeling that certifies and explains terms such as organic, low emissions, and green.
Two-thirds of Canadians say the term “green” has been used so much that it doesn’t have much meaning for them anymore when a company claims it.¹

Confirming these attitudes in the U.S., an Ipsos Reid study conducted in the spring of 2008 indicated that at the time, seven in ten Americans either strongly or somewhat agreed that when companies call a product ’green‘ it is usually just a ‘marketing tactic.’ U.S. consumers, the study reports, seem to be wary of firms who label products as ‘green’ or ‘environmentally friendly.’²

Can you help me sort out the difference between the MBDC Cradle to Cradle(SM) Protocol, the Natural Step, and Okala?

lstpierre — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:52:55 -0500

Good question. Each of these approaches makes a contribution to eco-design in a different way. One proposes a set of standards, another is a framework for long-range planning, and the third a collection of strategies and tools for specific decision-making.

Cradle to Cradle^SM (C2C) Protocol is a set of standards for environmentally benign products and systems. These standards are rooted Cradle to Cradle thinking, which is the long-understood principle that nature wastes nothing — everything is food for something else. Authors William McDonough and Michael Braungart propose that if we recycle everything with diligence and precision, we create “a positive paradigm where growth is good.”

The C2C Protocol is a set of standards as well as an assessment method for ensuring safe material chemistry and recyclability in products. This assessment method appears to be focused on contained chemistry – what the product contains when it is offered for sale – rather than emissions and other impacts throughout all the phases of material extraction, conversion and shipping of a product. A typical Life Cycle Assessment, in comparison, is much more comprehensive than this.

I’m responsible for new product development in a small company in the housewares product industry. We design our products, but all are manufactured in Asia. We’re getting pressure from retailer partners to reduce packaging content and all potentially hazardous substances. We’re also considering developing new products that we can position as having environmental benefits. Can the Okala methodology help us integrate these various issues?

sbelletire — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:56:25 -0400

The short answer is, “yes.” Here’s the longer version:

This question addresses supply chain and distribution issues impacting most companies in the US and around the world. As the Pacific Rim and China have come to dominate many sectors for manufactured goods, these countries have struggled to keep up with external and internal agency and material safety standards.

Recent headlines about pet food and toothpaste reveal only the tip of this iceberg. And we only need to look to Wal-Mart to understand the pressure their suppliers are under to comply with their packaging scorecard program, and now their electronic scorecard initiative.

Wal-Mart Packaging Scorecard Metrics
GHG/CO2 per ton of production	15%
Material value	15%
Product/package ratio	15%
Cube utilization	15%
Transportation	10%
Recycled content	10%
Recovery value	10%
Renewable energy	5%
Innovation	5%

Wal-mart and other major retailers are attempting to polish their ‘green credentials’ in an effort to offer their customers more environmentally responsible choices. So we’ll look at how Okala can help your company connect these 21^stcentury business dots.

I am a proponent of extending product lifetimes, but it is sometimes hard to justify to clients. Can you give me some suggestions for helping clients understand the value of this approach?

lstpierre — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:32:22 -0400

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.

Which system is better for measuring a product's environmental performance – ‘process flows’ or ‘environmental impacts’?

pwhite — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:52:30 -0400

When modeling the life cycle environmental performance of products and services, some people account for process flows – energy use, water use and solid waste production. Others account for environmental impacts – such as global warming potential, human toxicity and ecotoxicity, water pollution, ozone layer depletion, and smog production. Differences between these measurable groups may seem subtle, but they have significant implications for our ability to protect natural ecology and human health.

Process flows
Non-scientists quickly comprehend the idea of process flows. Embodied energy, water use and solid waste production are relatively self-explanatory concepts. As a rough and simple metric – they indicate the quantity of resources associated with the production of a material or process, and they echo the common idea that material, energy and waste flows are proportional to environmental impacts. This generalization can, however, lead to erroneous conclusions. A closer look reveals some of the paradoxes inherent in measuring process flows in the pursuit of making ‘greener’ products.