When most people think of sustainability they think of carbon footprints, recyclable materials and polar bears. As two of Carswell Gould's designers found out in April, there's more to it than that.
Graham and Tom went to the Concorde Club in Eastleigh to take part in South East Designs 'Design for Sustainability' seminar, hosted by the South Coast Design Forum and led by James Dorrell of Giraffe Innovations.
The aim of the seminar was to get designers to think about the impact that their work has on the planet and how they can use their skills as designers to make a positive difference.
"A moderate business-as-usual scenario, based on United Nations projections of slow, steady growth of economies and populations, suggests that by 2050, humanity's demand on nature will be twice the biosphere's productive capacity." - WWF Living Planet Report
This means that if we don't improve our mismanagement of the planet's resources, by 2050 we would require two planets to maintain our current way of life. If everyone on Earth was living the same lifestyle that we enjoy in the UK, we would require six planets.
So what can be done about it?
The biggest single element in improving our waste of resources is education.
Most people assume that their biggest contribution to climate change and resource use is the fuel in the car that takes them to work. However, there are many more factors which need to be considered.
For every product we come into contact with during our daily life there is a 'resource cost'. From our computers to the paper in our post-it notes, everything has to be manufactured, supplied, used and ultimately disposed of. When you consider all of these costs, it's clear that filing up the car is just a small proportion of our total 'resource spend'.
As designers we have a responsibility to make sure that the products we design have as low an environmental impact as possible. This comes down to the choice of materials used, the types of processes needed to produce it and the additional costs required to use and dispose of it when it reaches the end of its life.
As clients, it's your responsibility to insist on sustainable design.
It's not just for 'the fuzzy feeling inside'. Research shows that the 'green market' is in growth despite the recession and that companies aren't expected to be perfect in order to be considered green. This means that if you can show you're at least trying to improve your carbon footprint, you can potentially tap into a lucrative consumer base.
Part of the seminar was a practical exercise where participants were asked to assess a piece of packaging for its sustainable merits (or lack thereof). The Carswell Gould team took along a normal, every day DVD case and decided to compare it to a CD case.
Despite the content being identical, a DVD has about a third more packaging than a CD. While this could be useful in differentiating the two products on a shop shelf, it has some far more dramatic implications.
The extra plastic for the DVD has to be produced from 30 per cent more raw materials and uses 30 per cent more energy in its manufacture. The printed sleeve is also bigger, requiring more paper, ink and fuel to produce. Most DVDs are wrapped in cellophane, 30 per cent more than a CD.
Then there's transportation: the extra space needed for the DVDs means you can fit less of them on a truck. Less on a truck means more trucks taking them to a ship. You need more ships to transport the DVDs overseas, where more trucks are required to distribute the DVDs to the shop.
Once the DVD is 'home' it's fairly inert apart from the energy used to play in a DVD player (ignoring the the ‘green cost' of the DVD player and the TV needed to play it). However, once it reaches the end of its life, it requires 30 per cent more energy than a CD to recycle the plastics (if they are even recyclable).
When you start to think about that slightly bigger box, it really shows how important design can be. Even more so when you consider that a CD case is considerably more wasteful than the cardboard sleeve which contains the DVD you get from your sunday newspaper. Exactly the same contents but considerably more waste.
This is just one example of an everyday product and its environmental impact. Extrapolate that across every product you come into contact with on a daily basis and it quickly becomes apparent just how critical sustainable design is.
When you consider that the problem is only going to become more desperate, the obvious conclusion is to do something about it now, rather than waiting until it's too late.
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