its become apparent through lack of postings that “green” design does not seem to be of major concern.
does anyone have any ideas how the profile could be lifted. I am as guilty as the next of not prioritising environmentally responsible design. But would like to be better… Help!
i care.
I think they do care but they haven’t been given much info lately. There are some exciting things comming up. Note: This is not a sales job. I just want to show that there are people working on this.
The IDSA Southern District Conference I am working on, will have multiple sessions on green design:
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“Ecodesign Workshop for Educators” (but all may attend). Design educators and students are invited to the IDSA Okala ecological design education seminar. The content of this ground-breaking ecodesign curriculum will be reviewed with hands-on exercises. The primary goal of this session is to help prepare educators to use the course. Okala was developed by the Educational workgroup of the EPA/IDSA Partnership. Philip White, IDSA Environmental Responsibility Section chair, and Okala Team lead, will facilitate the seminar.
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“What’s eLCie ™? Building a Sustainable World.” - Deborah Dunning, President of the Design Center for the Environment. She and ten other IDCE Board members are creating simpler-to-measure and simpler-to-communicate environmental attributes for products in a new tool call eLCie ™. Their intent is to provide product designers and managers with a new resource to communicate the added value of sustainably developed products. Deborah also serves in the Life Cycle Management Work Group of the joint Life Cycle Iniatives Programme of the United Nations and SETAC.
I hope this shows that someone cares,
Tim Fletcher
IDSA Southern District VP
Good actions by your IDSA chapter Timf. I’ve taken note of the Okala partnership with EPA that was announced on IDSA’s website. I have hopes that this kind of partnering will bridge the gap between environmentalism and business.
Keep up the good work IDSA.
i think that plenty of people care.
but i would like to comment that the segregation of this folder is quite telling of many designers, students, and educators attitudes towards sustainability. why not keep the folders as they were, and allow ‘green’ discussions to happen in a larger setting?
i used to post alot when this folder did not exist, and met some amazing people and participated in great dialogue in the more general folders. i think discussions of sustainability need to be out there, amongst the masses, providing challenging and thought-provoking ideas.
just some thoughts!
jw
I as well as many other designers care about “green design”. However as designers we can recommend and design green, but it is up to our clients and to take the step and initiate the changes to policy that we recommend. Though I have only been working professionally for 2.5 years in a consultancy, I have seen many green attempts kicked to the curb because the client felt it too risky at the time. “We will keep this in mind for future consideration, but for now lets stick with what we know is profitable”
We not only need to educate the designers, we need to educate manufacturing, management, and society as a whole.
I have to agree. We may not like it but we don’t have enough power. We are still pawns of the clients whose bottom line is maximizing profits however they can. It seems, the vast majority will only go greener if it’ll eventually mean more green for them, or to prevent losing green from govt fines. I feel good for the manufacturers that follow that route on their, take the risk for a worthwhile cause, and end up with a good return. But sad thing is most companies don’t want to take risk, they want “reliable” returns so they keep doing the same things that’ve made (them / others) money in the past, waiting for someone else to take the leap of faith and succeed. Then they’ll hop on board once it’s less risky.
I think we have plenty power, except the problem is we keep pushing “green design”. The minute you say green to an MBA their eyes roll into the back of their heads and you look like a hippy.
Why not say, “Hey, I found a way to manufacture/ship/design/whatever for less money.” Many times by reducing the number of materials or shipping weight is not only green but cost effective too. Green comes in many forms and doesn’t always have to be brown paper pulp products.
Know you you are talking to and gear your message for them. They don’t have to know they are supporting a hippy. 
word
I think that in order to do green design or even socially responsible design, aside from having a pro-eco-design clients, designers should look for other funding sources/projects than simply clients-- i.e., doing pro-bono work, or looking for EPA grants or grants from the same sources that environmental scientists and Non-governmental organizations get their money-- if THEY can do environmentally conscious research, so should we-- in addition, almost any design student would kill to work with a working designer on an eco-design project- one way to demonstrate actual working models of green design to scared clients is to try it yourself first, and if you can get someone else to pay for it that has nothing to do with commercial interests, those client constraints go out the window.
Idealistic? yeah, but guess what, the above is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE!!!