Common sense

If sustainable design conjures up images of recycled loo paper, ineffectual eco-cleanser and open-toed sandal-wearers, forget it: sustainable isn’t a dirty word. As the products shortlisted for this year’s £40 000 Design Museum’s Design Sense sustainable award clearly demonstrate – not only is sustainability fast becoming a legal and economic imperative, it’s getting sexier and more exciting. But not before time.

DFTA inc. Burn (formerly Designs from the Attic), has sponsored a conceptual look at sustainable design, working with architect Jestico and Whiles on the House of the Future at the Museum of Welsh Life in Cardiff. DFTA designer Angela Giddens says, “You don’t have to betray fashion or ignore style for the sake of the environment – it just takes thought.”

Everything in the house, says Giddens, communicates its sustainability. “The products are not futuristic, but simple, clever little solutions.” DFTA’s concept is furniture, each piece of which breaks down into modules. “Each member of the family takes ownership of part of the furniture, takes care of it, develops and evolves with it, takes it with them through life,” she says.

Both the House of the Future and the Design Museum competition are meant to raise public awareness. Design Sense considers each entry ” in terms of its environmental, commercial, social and aesthetic impact from raw materials to end of lifecycle”.

Janice Kirkpatrick, director of Glasgow-based consultancy Graven Images and a Design Sense judge, thinks the competition encourages designers to make sustainability a priority. “When environmentalism first became an issue, it was in a tawdry and stylistically shallow way. Out of context it becomes superficial and impotent; Design Sense widens out the context,” she says. Part of that context is creeping European regulation on this issue, and keeping up to date isn’t easy. Martin Charter, head of R&D unit the Centre for Sustainable Design, a visiting professor in sustainable product design at University College and a Design Sense judge, explains that two European directorates, Environment (DG11) and Enterprise (DG03), both take an active interest, but often separately, and it’s far from clear how matters will move forward.

What is clear is that three proposed EU directives will eventually filter down into UK law: the automotive end-of-life directive will make automobile manufacturers responsible for disposing of cars at the end of their lifecycle, and recycling 85 per cent of it by 2006 (95 per cent by 2015).

Waste from electrical and electronic equipment will make manufacturers responsible for collecting and recycling a wide range of electronic products as early as 2004; and restriction of certain hazardous substances, or ROS, will require companies to find substitutes for substances such as lead by around 2008.

Then there are international standards. Ford Motor Company, for example, is the first auto manufacturer to have all 140 of its production plants ISO14001-certified, meaning “all products, no matter where they come from, were produced in an environmentally sound way.”

ISO14001 “has a process character; it’s a living thing,” says Adrian Schmitz, Ford’s European manager, environmental issues. “Each year we try to improve, to reduce the environmental impact of our manufacturing.”

Not just that. Ford is simultaneously investigating how it will manage the charmingly named cradle-to-grave disposition of old cars, and ways it can re-use waste materials – currently it’s re-using 16 000 tonnes a year.

But Ford invests heavily in R&D and knowledge. “What we see is that knowledge tends to be locked within the Fortune 500-type companies; that is where knowledge is growing,” says Charter. “There is a lot of dissatisfaction with the ability of externals – universities in R&D or product designers – to add value.”

“It’s much easier for IBM to have an environmental policy, but very difficult for an individual or small consultancy without a lucrative client to be picky about what they do,” says Kirkpatrick. “They can’t afford to choose environmentally responsible stock or environmentally appropriate manufacturing processes.”

The opportunity cost of keeping abreast of legislative and regulatory changes is high; Charter worries that small design consultancies simply don’t have sufficient resources. “Design consultancies tend to be small-to-medium-sized enterprises and they have to run it tight. Typically, their philosophy is: ‘Until it’s in the brief we’re not doing anything, and then I’ll learn about ecodesign in a weekend’. They’re relying on the client rather than helicoptering, looking at trends, getting first-mover advantage.”

Often, says Kirkpatrick, SMEs form partnerships rather than make an intellectual investment. “You rely on your subcontractors: your printers, your paper manufacturers to give you the right information to make an environmentally sound judgement.”

Charter worries, too, that “throughout Europe there is virtually no education provided for product designers at the undergraduate level on environmental issues”.

An initiative called Demi, stimulated by the Design Council in conjunction with the Government’s HE21 programme, is trying to change that. “Demi is a consortium of higherand further-education colleges and organisations aimed at developing teaching materials,” says Design Council chief executive Andrew Summers. It should help graduates understand, for instance, how sustainable design differs from ecodesign, as Design Sense judges take pains to explain. “Sustainability is more than just the environment,” says Kirkpatrick. “It’s people, jobs, a culture of inclusion – it’s quality of life as much as quantity.”

Charter offers a scenario to distinguish between the two: “You could buy a computer in the US that’s energy efficient. It may have 95 per cent recycled plastic in the casing – you can say it’s been ecodesigned. But maybe it has components supplied from China. The Chinese factory may have high environmental standards, be ISO14001 compliant, but it may use child labour. But that may allow a family of ten to survive.”

“You’ve really got to look at the overall impact of the solution,” adds Charter. “Particularly in the context that the UK now focuses largely on systems integration and assembly, so less and less manufacturing actually takes place here,” he adds.

The Design Council examines the trend toward sustainability on its Design Horizons website; recent Design Council research indicates businesses take it very seriously. “We ask how important various issues will be for the future,” says Summers. Of 631 businesses surveyed, 13 per cent said environmental pressures are very significant to the running of their firm, and 21 per cent as fairly significant, for a total of 34 per cent – “not a majority, but a significant number,” says Summers.

In line with this increasing economic importance, says Summers, “Sustainability is moving, albeit rather slowly, up the political as well as the business agenda,” and might have a much higher profile in the next General Election.

Recognising this trend, the Department of Trade and Industry’s recent Sustainable Technology Initiative will spend £15m over the next five years. Co-funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, STI will “support collaborative research and development aimed at improving the sustainability of UK business”, through grants and collaboration with businesses and universities.

Part of the push, though, has to come from design groups, which are not unaware of this. Seymour Powell, for instance, has come up with three laws of recycling. First law is, “Don’t, if you can avoid it,” says Richard Seymour. Avoiding built-in obsolescence is crucial, he says. “Products should be ‘permanent’ if possible, allowing for maximum ‘reparability’ and sustainability,” he says. He admits this isn’t always possible, but says a general rethink – greater commitment from designers and manufacturers, a reinvigorated infrastructure of repair shops – is in order.

The House of the Future project also examines this issue of preservation. “Traditionally, over past generations you had the hand-me-down syndrome – your sofa belonged to your parents,” says Giddens. “We’re building a bit of that into the project with a more modern, futuristic approach. Some refer to this as the teddybear factor: evolving and developing with a product, taking it through time with you.”

Seymour Powell’s second law is, “Involve the end user.” Educate the user as to what products, can and can’t be recycled. “It’s not all bad,” says Charter. “There may be a reality issue but there may be a perceptual issue, too.” Seymour says, “There is still a residual feeling among many consumers that a product made from recycled materials somehow inferior to the ‘real’ thing.” Kirkpatrick adds, “Some recycled or reusable materials are deliberately brown ricey.”

Ford cars manufactured in Europe may prove their point. Colin Stroud, recycling expert at Ford’s Materials Technology Centre, says a Ford might now feature sound-deadening pads made from old Levi’s, heater housings from used bottle caps, instrument panels from recycled CDs and rubber mats from waste tyres.

Seymour Powell’s third law is, “Create superior products which celebrate environmental sensitivity.” Making lifecycle issues part of a product’s superiority, says Seymour, is necessary to engender this mindshift.

We’re nowhere near, yet. “At this stage,” says Charter, “it’s eco-redesign, not eco new-product development. It tends to be used as an evaluation criteria several stages into the development process – it’s not included at the idea generation or creative stage. “Companies are focusing on one type of strategy rather than looking more broadly at how to reduce energy throughout a product’s lifecycle. Sustainability tends to be a bolt-on within R&D, rather than just another criteria integrated in alongside quality, cost, functionality,” adds Charter.

Both Seymour and Charter believe that how products and services are marketed will exert enormous influence. “Marketing guys have the greatest power over product design – they have input into briefs – yet their role is one of the least Green functions,” says Charter. “Big opportunities are being missed, because they’re not switched on to environmental issues.”

Whether by the regulatory stick or the economic carrot, sexy sustainable design is the next big thing. “There doesn’t need to be a tradeoff between sustainability and cost,” says Summers. You should be able to say of any product, says Seymour, “This thing – while responsible from an energy and materials point of view – is also desirable, fun and better for you.”

Design Sense winners and shortlisted submissions are exhibited at the Design Museum, 28 Shad Thames, London SE1, from tomorrow until 21 January 2001. The website is: www.designmuseum.org.uk/designsense/