here's a list of purely environmental design firms i've found

http://www.re-nourish.com/?l=casestudies_greendesign

I noticed there's a lot of Canadian firms and I think that's to do with how being environmentally friendly is portrayed there. I spent last summer in Toronto and the place was so clean you could eat of the off of the streets. every bin in their street have 3 separate compartments for recycling and they bin men don't take your rubbish away unless its sorted into the correct recycling criteria. there are several methods of public transport and there are even electronic bike stands where you can rent a bike for any amount of time from an hour to a month.

Do you think if other countries adopted strategies like these, people would be more environmentally aware and therefore prompt more design companies to become environmental?



Lynsey.

OK the comment from Lynsey on my last post got me thinking.

Do you think clients should take into consideration how much paper they use getting us too design posters, flyer's,business cards etc.

Do you think they already do ?

how do you think that together with clients we can change this or counter balance it ? by planting trees like Lynsey said , switching to more screen based media ? or simply trying to always use some formed of recycled paper ?

An interesting read

http://www.source4style.com/trends/the-academy/qa-with-lynda-grose-pioneer-in-sustainable-design/

even though it's for fashion design there's some transferable relations here :)



Lynsey.

While commenting on Appies post I thought of something:


If you designed 5 products that your clients chose un-environmental materials for, but then had also convinced 5 other clients to produce their products in environmental materials,

would that mean that you are moraly free from the guilt of having designed 5 things that were unenvironmental in the first place? Is it all just a blanceing act? Or is the point completely moot because at the end of the day those 5 unenviromental products are still out there partially because of you?Or could it be argued that if you hadn't done it another designer would have, and is that not selling out?


thoughts?

http://www.productdesignforums.com/topic/2625-environmental-design-no-such-thing/  

Just found this forum , think it has some very interesting views on sustainability within design;

(excerpt from forum)

During discussion with staff and graduates about this course I made the point that I felt that there is no such thing as 'environmental design'. In fact environmental design is design. My argument, very simplistically, was that design was about resolving problems with 'seamless compromise' (thanks Graham). This involves meeting the most satisfactory outcome for all parties involved as well as for economy, politics, society and the environment. Therefore design cannot be categorised into environmental and non-environmental design.

I had opposition from those who felt that not all projects considered their environmental impact and position. I argued that this was 'bad' design.
You may like to consider this idea in terms of good design and bad design, where bad design is design that does not take due care and consideration for the environment.

What are your thoughts about the relationship of industrial design to environmental design?

Do you agree with the view presented here? Why do you disagree?




My response:

I disagree that there is no such thing as environmental design, somthing is either good for the planet or isn't. However I do feel that not at least factoring the environment into these desicions is bad design. I also agree with what is said lower down in the forum about how you can choose to make things enviromental but whether your client is going to take this on board is another matter. Many are on a tight budget and thats fair enough everyone is, but is it not the clients responsibilty as much as the designers responsibility to think about sustainability.

If it was a very large job which at the end means thousands of these things, what ever product it may be, being released into the commercal world, is it not the responsibility of the client to choose an environmental solution. At the end of the day you are chooseing to make these things you are chooseing to send these things into the world, a world that is at current a very disposeable world, we aquire we consume and we discard its just the way accelerated consumerism is, and although you yourself may not have created this product; you have not sat and vacumformed them or printed them etc it is because of a desicion that you have made that they are in this world. You have told someone to make them, you have paid for them to be made in this way. So what they do to this world once they have been consumed and disgarded is also because of your choice.


I believe it is the companies responsibility to strive for their products, advertisements, books whatever to have the lowest possible effect on the environment. And I believe it is the designers in the world who must keep pushing to give their clients sustainable solutions that are on budget. I also believe that if governments were to make companies pay tax on every unenvironmental product they produce, thus making the environmental option cheaper and a more appealing choice, it would force companies to take steps in reduceing their carbon foot print. Another alternateive would be to completely ban certain methods of production and rely only on recyclable or biogradeable materials. Things will never be this clear cut there just isn't a sustainable replacement for certain things yet, but in the, meantime I do believe it is down to designerrs and the clients were employ designers to consider the environment as an intregal part to any design. 

What do you think?

Thought i'd throw this in from the FB group so monsieurs Longstaff and Dodds at least know we're 'experiencing technical difficulties at this time...' 

DESIGN AS ETHICS 

(Excerpt from online blog)

"Caroline Whitbeck in Ethics in Engineering Practice and Research argues that ethics is traditionally regarded as judging something that has already been done. But the bigger challenge and what ethics should be is about the way to act. And that is a problem of design: devising ethical courses of action.

Design itself is ethics. It is all about what is the right thing to do, and not just technically. Everything that is made is an argument about how we should live our lives. The world is filled with competing objects that are arguing amongst themselves for our attention. "Live my way! Live my way!" Deciding where and how to employ the art of design is an ethical issue.

Designers need to be both technically right and compellingly wise. Wisdom is about evaluating and choosing between competing principles. And to be wise is to be aware. And awareness is the passage to action."

                                                                

[My view]

This designer interestingly puts forward the idea that it is not the final product or it's use that is the ethical issue, but the very act of design. 

Hypothetically, by doing a bad design for a company you morally object to (i.e. design you know is on a base level unsuccessful, lacks necessary aesthetic etc.) you are still being ethical because you are plotting a greater 'ethical route' that subverts the unethical and promotes the ethical via comparative successes/failures.

Also, if you were to say refuse said company, you would have no control over it's future or influence, and would thus be as responsible for it's future successes (due to inaction) as if you had created fantastic, successful work.

The general idea is that your motives behind a piece matter more than the purpose of the piece.