Åkermark, Anne-Marie, 2003. “The Crucial Role of the Designer in EcoDesign.” Doctoral Thesis. DiVA Academic Archive On-line. http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:9405 The main argument of this text is a strong belief in the designer having an important impact on sustainability, as they are the ones most likeable to decrease environmental impact through their design.
The following related ideas support this argument:
- the “designers themselves must be given the possibility of actually designing environmentally friendly products.” By doing so, ensuring that they have the means and abilities of having total control of all design aspects, this will ensure sustainability within creation of their products and/or spaces.
- Support from other sources is vital during product development. This includes environmental management systems, and even government regulation that ensure designers of large companies are focusing on sustainability, as the goal of major companies is to increase profits.
- It is crucial to stress right from the beginning how important “environmental adaptation” is, make sure that “environmental expertise” are available at hand, and to ensure constant education on the matter, so that the issue of protecting the environment and sustainability are well ingrained into the work of designers.
N/A. 2007. “Sustainable Design.” Pacific Builder and Engineer 113(11): 10 http://search.proquest.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/docview/195867125?accountid=10382 The main argument of tho text is that designers must ensure that they are creating sustainable environments, to allow for maximum energy conservation, as well as having a “positive economic impact” upon society.
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...hitectural Science: The Basis of Sustainable Design. Burlington: Taylor and Francis.
The main argument of this text is that it is necessary for the designer to have total control over the indoor environmental conditions, in order to create a sustainable living and/or working environment.
- The humans five senses are impacted upon by built environments. Therefore, the designer can and must control these to the best of his/her ability so that living is more sustainable, and has less of an environmental impact.
- The designer must make note of the given conditions, and assess these to the best of his/her ability, to ensure that the natural environment has been taken into consideration.
- It is the designers job to strive to ensure that maximum control of environmental variables has been adopted into the design, in order to maximise sustainability.
A business should make sure its methods of production are not negatively affecting its employees and that all the people in the business are happy and willing to work. Also, a business should make sure that its methods of production are not producing any waste on land or water or air pollution, for these negatively affect society. A business that cares about it’s influence on the environment, and its consumers is bound to make a difference. For example: General Mills wants to reduce the amount of energy it uses. In order to do this, they had energy monitors installed into some of their equipment in one of their manufacturing plants. The result: General Mills saved around six hundred thousand dollars (James). Profit can be obtained faster by a business that is looked upon as a positive influence on the environment and its employees. Overall, a business should be careful about how it produces its products and think about society’s health before it makes a decision, for if it doesn’t, the liability for damage is a much greater price to
Although Maniates labels the “A” in IWAC as “meaningful consumption Alternatives,” his thoughts on the matter refer more to the institutional influences on product development. In Woodhouse’s words, “The public’s failure to embrace sustainable technologies has more to do with institutional structures that restrict the aggressive development and wide dissemination of sustainable technologies than with errant consumer choice” (48). Instead of attributing the lack of environmentally friendly products to happenstance, Maniates claims that there are production-side structural aspects which hinder the development of green products. Woodhouse mirrors Maniates in this aspect by recognizing the influences on engineers to overlook environmental concerns. “Neither law nor professional norms make [sustainable] design tasks a required aspect of most engineers’ responsibilities, and most employers place substantial obstacles in the way of engineers taking those design elements farther than law and market competition require” (27). By and large, companies are driven by the desire to maximize profit above all else, and from the perspective of employers, adding in environmental concerns is merely an additional constraint on potential profit margins. If engineering ethics and government regulations are sufficiently detailed on sustainability, then employers
Waste Not, Want Not: if you use a resource carefully and without extravagance, you will never be in need. In a 2009 essay, “Waste Not, Want Not”, writer Bill McKibben argues on the excess of unnecessary waste. To halt climate change, he proposes to convince the reader to shift priorities in waste management and go back to the frugality of simpler times. Bill approaches his argument with a vast amount of informative charged words to convince the reader into taking his side of the argument. The writer’s intended purpose in writing this piece is to make a statement and develop his argument against the unnecessary waste. To make this argument effective, the writer utilizes logic to persuade the audience with overwhelming data and reason. His primary instrument of choice in this essay is using logically charged words followed by factual evidence to back up his claims. Although his use of emotion and pathos are less obvious, but where used, is effective.
Design has established itself as core elements in societies helping countless communities build infrastructure, invent new ways to better living conditions and create design desirable for consumption hence bettering the economy. Though this is a positive, most designers of the 21st century use their skills and their designs alike for those who can afford it; designing for what’s in fact the minority, 10% of the world’s population. The reason why developmental aid and design for development is essential to improving standards of living for those who live in developing countries, but to also bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. Ilse Oosterlaken (2009, p.100) equates most designs for development that use a `participatory' process as having a limited, user-centred approach; and suggests instead a more universal design approach, which she calls ‘capability sensitive design’. This essay will illustrate designs that have contributed to developmental design through capability sensitive design approach, considering sustainable design that are not only better the environment, community health and social welfare but the country’s economic standing. Through evaluating each example’s potential for real, sufficient, diverse and lasting value for the targeted users we can determine each design’s efficiency.
The company knows that in order to achieve a complete sustainability and stay profitable in the same time, it is crucial to raise costumer awareness and make him look at the sustainability as a lifestyle, making it more attractive in the eyes of ordinary individual. As the company holds a leading place worldwide, Ikea is working on creating great awareness and acceptance among consumers by using its brand
Sustainable manufacturing requires the green fashion knowledge from consumers to make it work. Green fashion knowledge is, “Environmental attitude models or consumers’ perception and beliefs on green products”. (Cervellon & Wernerfelt, 2012, p. 178) This is crucial because it raises awareness for consumer for the environment and hence promote the importance of green and sustainable textile manufacturing. But consumers often get the wrong idea and clarity of the true meaning behind it, “Consumers seem to doubt the existence of sustainable production processes, especially in the fashion industry where manufacturing is often outsourced to emerging countries” (Cervellon & Wernerfelt, 2012, p.178) Consumers often believed that sustainable manufacturing is only practiced by a minimal amount of manufacturers, so the concern for sustainable fashion is often neglected. On the other hand, the image of green fashion is often related to dull and not in style, so the majority of people will prefer fast fashion that is trendy, up to date and cheap. To promote the benefits of green fashion, it will take time to educate consumers and transfer knowledge to them. In a study performed by Marie-Ce ́cile Cervellon and Anne-Sophie
...uided towards organizations and consumers towards a common goal, which is to create a sustainable society, starting with fashion. “We quietly accept that people are important, and quickly move onto discussions of how to do things with, for and to people”[4]. Although changing the system it self will take enormous efforts and time, it is important to execute the process one by one by accepting the problems to creative solutions.
Humans have been destroying the planet since we were able to stand on two legs. As a society, we need to work to reverse these terrible effects that our existence has on the planet. Sustainability is one way to begin reversing these effects, while still living our daily lives. In 2006, Al Gore presented his documentary, “ An Inconvenient Truth”, as a way to show the world the evidence behind global warming, climate change and the destruction of our planet. This documentary shocked the world. It was clear that changes needed to be made, but the destruction was more intense than previously thought. SInce this revelation in 2006, companies have tried to cut down on their greenhouse emissions, as well as offered sustainable products to their customers. Through a debate of morals and
Currently there is an urgent need to make products and processes sustainable, and beneficial to everyone and everything. This is because the true facts are that if we do not act now, our resources will run out and we wont be able to do anything about it. We must now design for the future and not our currents needs, and everything should be compatible with nature to correspond with sustainability. The question designers should be asking themselves now is ‘is this design choice moving us in the right direction?’
Now days, the world is intended to be in a worst scenario ever imagined. Climates, global warming and furthermore problems. However, I have noticed new changes, universally speaking, yet renewable energy has also been popularized to our world and I addition, it became part of Sustainable Architecture. “Sustainable Architecture describes the fact that we can only exist and create with the availability of natural resources. Those resources are the foundation of our world. Sustainable architecture proclaims this fact to the world… And that is probably the most appropriate understanding of the term.”(Brooks, 92) That’s why these resources exist within our environment but only few of the people anticipated a good use for them just t increase likelihood the worlds energy efficiency and also the natural environment. Speculating Asia’s growth both in wealth and population, it has been a great risk for them consequently they had been temporizing endeavoring new ways of preventing massive energy consumptions and wastes from resources. “How can we protect our natural resource base while sustaining our socio economic gains? My answer in two words: systems and self.”(Ms. Galang, 1)
... architectures would led to a more organic organization beneficial to the people that choose to make their lives in this city. Although this model of a sustainable city is not a perfectly closed loop, it lays the foundation for one that is. Over time, with constantly evolving and improving technology and new methods of design from the scale of products to buildings, the gaps in the loop could be closed, and a “true” sustainable city could be fully realized.
[7] ¬Holdway, R., Walker, D. and Hilton, M. (2002) Eco-design and successful packaging, Design Management Journal. (pp. 45 – 53)
Yan, J. & Plainiotis, S. (2006): Design for Sustainability. Beijing, China: Architecture and Building Press.
...wledge that current human activities are destroying the earth. Humans taking responsibility toward sustainability is urgent because much of the injury inflicted on earth is irreversible. Drastic, comprehensive changes in all levels of society have to be made before long because the effects of environmental damage are permanent.
The concept of “going green” is a necessity for the future because “our children deserve cities as beautiful as they are”. Works Cited Russell, Lauren. A. Web. " An Evaluation of Municipal Recycling Programs."