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Sustainable Product Design Conversation with Brian Ling

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visual metaphor for sustainable designContinuing on the conversation I had yesterday with DT regarding design strategy, today we discuss Sustainability in design:


Mario:
After looking over the classic design strategies previously covered, I noticed I hadn’t included Sustainability. Some folks and organizations think of sustainability as a side consideration. However, I believe it is an essential strategy that should be included in the mix. Apart from ecological advantages in manufacturing, product usage, and disposal, there are also potential cost, quality, and performance advantages among others.

From some friends’ experiences in marketing communications and from articles on this subject, I see a larger emphasis on designers becoming well acquainted with eco-friendly inks, paper, and other supplies so that they can provide more leadership and direction to co-workers and management who aren’t as well informed.

How do you see product designers’ roles and activities when considering sustainable design? Could you share some unique perspectives from the consumer electronics industry?


DT:
In fact sustainability has had its up and downs. It used to be a time where to be environmentally friendly you had to suffer with poor design or inferior products. Not any more. I would go almost as far to say that sustainability should be a given these days. Governmental requirements have help facilitate this as well. Products these days need to have lead free components, energy saving circuitry, a product end of cycle return strategy (ie used printer cartridges) as well as benefits if the product uses recyclable materials. Some companies do this better than others, but nevertheless this is all going in the background under the radar of most consumers.

However there in lies a bigger problem. Consumption. What is a point of making a product fully recyclable when people continue to buy? Case in point Apple iPods and mobile phones who’s life cycle is a notorious 6 months? The problem here is the energy and effort to recycle these products back into usable material far outweighs the environmental impact of virgin materials.

Therefore Sustainability 2.0 is not so much about recycling but more about creating “sustainable behaviors”. Getting mankind to be aware and control their consumption. Removing consumption demand also helps reduce planned product obsolescence. Of course industrial designers and marketers here can have a huge role in interfacing humans with products and solutions, this is because changing a behaviours is a difficult thing to do.


Mario:
Interesting…from the way you put it and as I see it, promoting sustainable consumption patterns appears to be the next avenue of responsible creation and living. Traditionally, extending the usable life of a product implied they were better designed for long-term performance. This created loyalty and admiration in users, allowing for higher price acceptance. But the nature of these products was that their life cycle was fairly long (let’s say 5+ years), and the rate of innovation in the product category was fairly low (in terms of functional utility in the eyes of consumers).

With highly innovative products in competitive markets, this is not the case as you pointed out. I’m concerned myself about the volume of certain electronics’ purchase, consumption, and resulting e-waste out there…especially in regards to cell phones. Ultimately, it’s a sociological understanding of the long-term implications of rapid consumption that will need to be addressed. But when speaking to a colleague about this subject, we debated whether this pure ethical awareness approach is feasible. He proposed, and I agreed that there is always a business solution to end-of-lifecycle management. The challenge is setting up either reverse-logistics programs from manufacturers that promote this thinking, or establishing provincial / community programs.

In all, I see it as a systems-design approach that combines social awareness of responsible consumption patterns with processes to better handle end-of-life scenarios. It’s a big jumble that involves many differing factors. But I think commerce and people’s behavior will not change on their own, unless society (and unfortunately but necessarily government) generate effective awareness of the problems we face and demand change.

What do you think?


DT:
I believe that well designed products with long life cycles still have a role to play with encouraging sustainable behaviors. This is also applicable in high technology products as well. It is a misnomer actually and because of many safety requirements high technology products actually can last a long time. It is the software and components that keep making a product out dated, and as we now move into product experience and the intangible aspects of software, this cycle will only get worse. The psychology of this touches on the whole “keeping up with the Joneses”, the haves and have nots, and the constant need to be ahead of the rest and own something new. Again this is a behavior thing and (no offense) owes much to do with very successful advertising and branding campaigns generating consumer desire. In other words, years of advertising encouraging consumer wants not needs.

Refocusing back on product design, I don’t think that that creating a business case for an end of life cycle management solution is the only answer. This to me is a discussion on prevention rather than cure and which side you want to be on. In many ways our efforts in recycling, recyclable materials, ROHS compliance, and EOL management etc. is a reaction to a problem, a cure if you would like. Therefore in this case the solution should be about nipping the issue in the bud.

I agree with you, it is not easy, and most of effort should really about education and educating the public. Its about managing consumption, changing behaviors and awareness. There are many opportunities where designers can come in to make the behavior change easier, but much of it has nothing to do with making better or different consumer products. For example can you design an iPod that people wont want to change in 6 months? You might, but Apple won’t do it because their business relies on this 6 month product life cycle. Then with education you then teach people to ask if you really need to upgrade your iPod every six months or better still do you even need an iPod in the first place? I don’t; I just listen to the radio which is essentially a iPod with 2,000+ songs.

At the end of the day, as long as corporations rule, we don’t have much of a choice but to take bitter medicine at the end of the day. As it is even planned obsolescence is a big problem we face as designers and a reason why I made a decision a long time ago to avoid working in fast pace consumer electronics industry as much as possible.

But we can take heart as much of our efforts in teaching is working on the new generation and we are taking a step in the right direction. Systems design and management can be a key contributor in this discussion here. But if we don’t step by a look at the bigger picture, and as long as we don’t teach about adopting sustainable behaviours we will continue to fight a losing battle.

Going forward we are on a cusp of a new revolution and that is personal fabrication or fabbing. The time for Desktop Manufacturing will be is just around the corner in the next few years. I believe combined with the sustainability issue, this will force everyone involved in the product development cycle to re-think what it means to make a product, especially when your customers can make exactly what they want. It is scary but I am really looking forward to it.


Mario:
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our conversation about design strategy and sustainability in product development. Thanks for joining in!


DT:
Thanks for this discussion, I totally enjoyed it and hope we can keep in-touch and perhaps in future collaborate.


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