Ecological Design: Toward the Next Industrial Revolution?

1. Ecological Design: Toward the Next Industrial Revolution?

2. What is Design? Shaping the flows of energy and materials for human purposes.

3. Conventional Design Practices Conventional design practices have typically been predicated on imposing human intentions on the environment. The motto has been: “If you don’t get a desired result, it must be because you aren’t applying enough brute force.”

4. Making Decision Decisions How are design decisions typically made?

5. Making Decision Decisions Three criteria are generally employed. The first question a designer or manufacturer asks him/herself is “Can I afford to make it?”

6. Making Decision Decisions The second question is “Does it work in accordance with producer and consumer expectations?”

7. Making Decision Decisions The third question is “Do I like it?”

8. What is Ecological (Sustainable Design)? Shaping the flows of energy and materials for human purposes so intentions are carefully meshed with the larger pattern of flows of the natural world.

9. Making Decision Decisions Ecological designers add three additional questions. The first of these supplementary questions (and fourth it total) is, “Is the product ecologically intelligent?”

10. Making Decision Decisions The fifth question, “Is the product socially just in its manufacture, use, and disposal?”

11. Making Decision Decisions And the sixth (and final) question is, “Is it fun—in other words, is free of guilt and does it celebrate abundance and productivity?”

12. Essential Ideas of Ecological Design Design that is informed by nature is likely to be more robust and resilient because such approaches have been continually refined and tested over billions of years of evolution.

13. 1. Waste = Food The vast majority of contemporary industrial processes are massively wasteful by design.

14. Where is the Waste?

15. 1. Waste = Food Pulp and Paper Production Only 20-25 percent of the cellulose derived from harvesting trees is processed into paper. The vast majority is discarded as waste.

16. 1. Waste = Food Tank-to-Wheels Efficiency Less than 15 percent of the energetic potential of the fuel to power a car is actually used to move the vehicle down the road or power its accessories (e.g., air conditioning).

17. 1. Waste = Food So when designers talk about waste = food, they are describing a system of production and consumption that in its ideal form generates zero pollution, utilizes zero raw materials, and expends zero energy (except solar power).

18. 2. Eliminate the Notion of Obsolescence There is a critical contradiction in our contemporary system of economic organization. Producers aim to turn products over quickly while consumers ostensibly want them to last for a long time.

19. 2. Eliminate the Notion of Obsolescence --Victor Lebow (1955)

20. How Has This Dilemma Been Resolved? Producers have successfully convinced consumers that products are subject to fashion considerations and need to be discarded before the end of their functionally useful lives.

21. How Has This Dilemma Been Resolved?

22. 2. Eliminate the Notion of Obsolescence Sustainability demands a realignment of the interests of producers and consumers with respect to product durability.

23. 3. Products and Services One strategy for pursuing this realignment is to substitute services for physical products.

24. 3. Products and Services When one buys a refrigerator one is presumably not interested in having a hulking, humming machine in the kitchen, but rather the aim is to have convenient access to chilled, preserved food.

25. 3. Products and Services Or as Paul Hawken observes, one does not buy a television in order to own a box containing 4,000 toxic chemicals, but rather to be informed and entertained.

26. 3. Products and Services The contention is that we should be moving from an economy predicated upon selling goods to one based on provisioning services (e.g., the service of having access to cold food or the service of information and entertainment).

27. 3. Products and Services This would be an important step in transitioning away from an economy based on the ownership of goods toward an economy based on the flow of services (or product-service systems).

28. 3. Products and Services Mobility Rather than Automobiles

29. 3. Products and Services Energy Services Rather than Fossil Fuels

30. 3. Products and Services Computing Services Rather than Computers

31. 3. Products and Services Shoeing Feet Rather than Selling Shoes

32. 3. Products and Services

33. 4. Shift from Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy Climate change, peak oil, and energy security comprise a single problematique. Ecological design provides strategies for achieving these interrelated objectives by fostering decarbonization.

34. Decarbonization? An ongoing process of decarbonization has been occurring over the past few hundred years (at least in developed countries) as primary energy consumption has gone through the following evolution: wood > coal > oil > natural gas. Source: Nakicenovic (1997)

35. Decarbonization?

36. Decarbonization?

37. 5. Ecological Design is Not About Acclimating Ourselves to Substandard Goods A widely held view is that “environmentally friendly” products will not perform as well as customary alternatives.

38. 5. Ecological Design is Not About Acclimating Ourselves to Substandard Goods Quite the opposite is typically true. Products that are produced in accordance with ecological design principles can be safer, stronger, longer lasting, and more aesthetically appealing.

39. The Marketing of Ecological Design http://www.lazyenvironmentalist.com

40. The Marketing of Ecological Design

41. The Marketing of Ecological Design

44. William McDonough Michael Braungart Bill McDonough & Michael Braungart

45. Bill McDonough & Michael Braungart

46. Cradle to Grave We tend to think about the concept of “cradle to grave” as an effective and appropriate way to manage materials (especially hazardous ones).

47. Cradle to Grave Consistent with this concept, we have complex regulatory programs to track certain materials as they move through systems of production and consumption.

48. Cradle to Grave The objective, consistent with the idea of mass balance, is that the volume of material being sent to its “grave” should be equal to the amount generated in its “cradle.”

49. Cradle to Grave This approach has proven difficult to implement in practice, despite the fact that the vast majority of materials (90 percent by some estimates), go directly from their “cradle” to their “grave.”

50. Cradle to Grave In fact, the vast majority of consumer goods do not stick around for very long and are discarded within a few minutes of their use.