"Green design is just a fashion"

Well, we do need a little more bureaucracy in the country (USA), right?

In construction there are LEED standards set by the USGBC (US Green Building Council), which is quickly becoming standard in commercial and residential construction. There’s also RoHS standards in plastics, and other materials. I suppose a “governing body” could decide what’s Green and what’s not.

Of course the most Green thing you could do, is live with what you have and make it work forever. But then most of us would be out of work.

I have to somehow agree with Shigeru Ban, green design has been used too loosely. Being green is not enough, it has to be Sustainable Design where the entire life cycle of a product is taken into consideration, else it is just a marketing gimmick.

Good resource on sustainable design: http://www.espdesign.org

This is why I prefer Nike’s ‘Considered’ terminology. Consider context, and do your best to create as little entropy as possible, because you can’t get around it.

Sometimes I think UL is run by the mob.

I think what we’re trying to work toward is having the material that goes into our products “work forever” and not necessarily the actual product. Our jobs are safe, pheww! …I still need to learn Mandarin though, lol.

Oh, I completely agree with you there. I could off for hours on stupid UL listings.

I am alex. My point of view, I think that green is not working in professional market(corporates). It is good for personal or some specific groups or company. I do not think that green color is that much good. Most of the organizations are going for the professional colors.

Having watched this thread slowly build for a few days, I’m quite glad that Core haven’t moved it into the ‘designers accord and green design’ discussion area as I think this sort of topic should become a general design discussion. We shouldn’t have to label it as green design or any other specialised design area - sustainable, eco friendly, enviro conscious etc, it should become the norm in terms of what we as designers do. We don’t call the environmentally poor design work produced in the 80’s & 90’s and in many cases what is produced today as doing ‘un-green’ design. ‘What do you do?’, ‘I’m an un-green designer’ that would be too negative, so I’m inclined to agree with the title - green design is just a fashion.

I think the problem has been, that whilst many of us want to do good, previously, we haven’t had the tools to work out how green we are being. For example if I manage to save size and weight in a product, that must be an environmental saving, because I can ship more, saving fuel etc, but to reduce size and weight I have to use different materials, which require much more energy to process, how can I tell if the savings I’ve made are really a benefit over the material sacrifice. Does it balance out, or have I in fact actually made a negative environmental impact?

This site looks really useful and I will be investigating further - the stuff coming out from solid works mentioned on the site sounds really exciting too.

I’m quite glad that Core haven’t moved it into the ‘designers accord and green design’ discussion area as I think this sort of topic should become a general design discussion. We shouldn’t have to label it as green design or any other specialised design area - sustainable, eco friendly, enviro conscious etc, it should become the norm in terms of what we as designers do

it’s been moved :wink:

The whole point of having categories is that it helps people focus. Not a comment that every design should not be green, but if you look at everything in broad strokes it all “General Design” or “Projects”. That doesn’t help anyone.

R

for sure, titles help focus. Unfortunately, that’s now more bad focus than good focus… when a title has reached a stage where it makes people wince when they hear it, their focus is more often on avoiding or even worse, attacking the principles.

‘sustainable’ seems better all round for the time being (although, it has connotations of stagnation)… let’s just forget ‘green’, I don’t think I’ve used it in any professional context since about 1997 anyway.

I think everyone knows what green is, so let’s just keep it at that. the title of this thread also includes the term, and would likely be one of the first things someone searched for if they were interested in the topic. as vague as it is, it needs no further definition.

R

Did everyone just skip over this comment?

Good eyes mrtwills… I completely missed that. I still stand by my mafia run UL comment though.

http://www.use-less-stuff.com/index.htm

In 1970, Kermit the Frog sang “It’s not easy being Green” and here were are about to enter 2010 and feel the same way.

good point.
I’ve been thinking something similar for a long time. “Green Design” seems to turn out more of a FAD. Only minor production/design seem to have good results with efficient process and the majority just using “green” as a selling point.

When they had the “green house design” at the Chicago Sci & Tech museum last year… I was actually depressed.

I mean… “The dining table was made from a tree that was struck by a lightning and the designer has re used it, so its green!”
Come on…

But I do like how it has become a larger factor to consider.

Here’s an interesting article from Frank Ferudi about the fluidity of human life and how it conflicts with the current drive for sustainability. It also explores how sustainability has taken on an almost religious tone.

It’s obvious too. Those companies who’ve converted to environmentalism flaunt their “holier-than-thou” and “holier-than-that-other-company” mantra in your face as they embark on their new marketing mission, printing up new catalogs made of recycled paper and soy inks telling the world of their conversion, asking you to buy their product, and at the same time chastising you for your over-consumption of resources.

I agree with others on this topic, that it’s an obvious choice for companies to be as efficient as possible, cutting down on materials while designing for durability increases profits. It’s a no-brainer. But screaming it from the rooftops increases noise pollution.

The article takes a less critical stance than the one I take.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7782/

interesting point he makes there - sustainability acts as a suppressant/depressant to the human desire to fly higher and higher with language that’s about moderation, cutting back, etc…

Sustainability is about addressing the basics of survival, but it’s only a part of the picture and not something to be exclusively obsessed with.
I think the gloom surrounding this is all our failures in not having the imagination to be able to balance the talk of sustainability with challenges for the future. What’s not to be excited and invigorated about ! There’s a Universe of possibilities and places to explore out there… we’re strong, adaptable and have imagination and we’ll get better and better if we take care of the planet that provides for us in our infancy.

I have felt that the term “Green” has become an abused one. In my definition, when marketers and therefore the general public it refers to something being Green it is an intention of postitive action twoards the environmet and or planet. While these intentions are good they can be easily misguided, distorted or have little to no impact. Thus, Green has become a catch all word for almost anything with an environmental spin…

As a design professional I also prefer the term Sustainable over Green. In fact I prefer to even interchange the word Sustainable with Maintainable, because essentially that is what we are doing with our efforts and resources.

A few years on since this thread was started, a new president in the USA who is of the opinion that global warming is not man made, lessons not learned… so what progress was made in direction to greener designs? Here in Australia we continue with business as usual, the next generation can shoulder the burden.
I am trained in Europe as architect, here in Australia we have started 8 years ago an online business (www.thedesigngiftshop.com) offering ‘good design’, simple, near minimalist -if possible.
We as our own little contribution to becoming green and greener keep trying to sell in our shop sustainable products, products that last, eco friendly etc…, but what really sells is what is cheap. Nothing new, but also nothing changes.
I’d love to hear your opinion if we are the way to a ‘greener’ more sustainable future (in the near futur) or not???

Still a very relevant discussion isn’t it. It is often overrated how well products advertised as green or fairtrade do on the market. Yet we are part of a sustainable system ourselves and we like recycling and sustainable energy. If we look at the numbers then yes, we do have an effect on the climate, but not in catastrophic ways. The planet is self-stabilizing and will survive. It is warming up now but not too far in the future will cool down again for a new ice age. Also the ozone layer is healing now we stopped using harmful chemicals. So I think innovation will be very much ground up, bioplastics and biodegradable additives becoming more and more cost-effective and common. They will not be the major selling points of a product, it is just the industry slowly evolving. We are now at the time where we are seriously considering how to innovate sustainably and with the shutdown of coal power plants, the transition to more sustainable energy production by water and thorium reactors as well as Tesla’s Gigafactory plans, get us a long way.