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Costing the Earth tells stories which touch all our lives, looking at man's effect on the environment and at how the environment reacts. It questions accepted truths, challenges the people in charge and reports on progress towards improving the world we live in. |
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LISTEN AGAIN Ìý30 min |
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'I really enjoy working on Costing the Earth, because it has the time to get its teeth into a subject and the resources to look at it critically. I hope it manages to say something new about most of the subjects it covers.'
Alex Kirby
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| Herman Miller's Aeron chair is a design classic, but few are aware of its sustainable design credentials |
Designed for Life
The Dualit Toaster, the Alessi lemon-squeezer, the Apple I-Pod. All desirable design icons that most of us would forfeit our eco-consciences to own. But does it need to be this way? This week, Costing The Earth takes a look at sustainable design and asks if it has a place in our consumer society
Sustainable design is no longer a preserve of the 'greens' with worthy ideas such as recycling plastic bottles into sweatshirts, but is gradually making its way into mainstream culture. As Europe demands that we stop throwing our out-of-date cars and consumer goods into land-fill pits, important questions are being raised as to how we design for a more sustainable future. Costing The Earth this week, focuses on such questions and asks:Ìý - What is sustainable design and how do we measure it?
- What is it that we want to sustain? Energy? Economy? Longevity? Beauty?
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There are a number of design companies that are producing 'eco-designs' or products with an ethical twist but what most of us think of as 'green' design, according to America's foremost green architect and founder of the Institute for Sustainable Design, Bill McDonough, is not green at all.
"Eco-efficiency, the credo of reduce, reuse and recycle to which most forward-thinking companies now subscribe, will never deliver anything but an illusion of change. It is still based on the one-way, linear, cradle-to-grave manufacturing line, where things are created and eventually discarded, usually in an incinerator or a landfill".
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So what is the alternative? Bill McDonough thinks we need to re-draw the industrial process itself in what he calls the 'next industrial revolution'. He sees no problem with the West's current model of capitalism and consumerism. Rather, it is the process of design that needs re-thinking. Factories should not produce waste as their by-products, but 'food' or 'nutrients' for other industrial processes, a cyclical model he dubs the 'cradle to cradle' approach.
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There are some significant examples of this idea. Such as Herman Miller's Aeron or Mirra chairs, which have become sought after design classics and which adopt a sustainable approach. They are not only made from recycled materials but at its end-of-life, the parts are easily disassembled to make new products.
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But what of the big boys? Can this approach be applied to mass consumer or electronic objects? Who is entering into this 'new revolution'? In response to EU edicts banning a range of hazardous chemicals from electronics manufacturing and demanding that manufacturers 'take back' their goods for disassembling and recycling at the end of their life is ensuring that we will witness an emergence of greener products.
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Brunel University is at the cutting edge of this response. Their Active Disassembly project is involved, amongst other things, in the development of 'smart materials', which will reassume their original shape when heated to a certain temperature.
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However, in big manufacturing business, the decisions aren't in the hands of the designer - products are determined by company strategy and consumer demand. It is only just being realised that 'green' design, integrated at strategy level into a company, could in itself be a powerful business driver. In a recent study, the Design Council found the UK lagging behind other European competitors when it came to embracing 'eco-conscious design - and losing out on market share because of it. And the world leader? Japan.
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Good sustainable design, seems to be about giving companies the right incentives - both financial and legislative - to allow the designers to do what they do best - creating that designer's holy grail, a perfect balance between form and function...and sustainability.
Next week Costing The Earth delves in the world of nasty niffs and asks how can we prevent bad smells from ruining our quality of life. And what scientific breakthroughs have been made to combat odour pollution.
If you would like to comment on any of the issues raised on tonight's Costing The Earth you can join the debate on the .
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