On Tuesday evening myself and the rest of the Chichester Design team attended the Design for Sustainability workshop at Pallant House Gallery.
The event focused on the important task of designing out product wastage in all stages of the design process. We discussed whether something that is claming to be green is actually green?
For example, one of the products was a recycled umbrella from a high-street brand, it claimed in green printed text, “I am a recycled umbrella, I was once bottle caps.” We speculated that this might not be completely true, unless the manufacturer has found a way to magically turn plastic bottle caps into the steel parts used. The umbrella was manufactured in China, which again could be questionable considering this country is the world’s biggest polluter.
People often believe that because a product is saying, “I’m green and ethical”, it must be good. Unfortunately, many companies exploit the consumer with greenwashing. While products cannot be perfect, as designers we can find ways to reduce the carbon footprint in design and manufacture.
Using the ‘Eco Design Web – 8 dimensions of sustainable design formula’ allows designers to see what improvements can be made to a product or its packaging. For example, we were looking at a old iMac box which has to protect the product in transit and therefore has high density packaging. We came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was simply make the box smaller which reduces the amount of recourses used.
At Chichester Design we promote a green office policy, our project management system is virtually paper free. We use Apple products, which claim to be the greenest computers on the market and have energy saving features which we take advantage of whenever we can, and the Chichester Design dedicated web servers are carbon neutral.
The Design Sustainability Workshop event was hosted by Business Link, South East Design and Giraffe for members of the South Coast Design Forum.
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