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greetings everyone today's presentation is on the topic of sustainable design i believe that design has three primary goals beauty utility and sustainability and today we'll focus on the third one which is sustainable design [Applause] well let's step back a little and look at this notion of sustainable development what exactly does that does that mean and here's a definition from the bronte report from 1987 and essentially this defines sustainable development as the kind of development
0:36
that does meet the needs of people now people in the present this generation but without compromising the needs of future generations we should use our resources in such a way that we are able to satisfy our needs now but ensuring the fact that 5 6 eight ten generations down the line that group of people is also able to meet their needs through the resources that they need and that essentially is sustainable development john elkington has come up with this notion of the triple bottom line
1:14
what does that mean essentially very often when companies come up with new innovations new ideas new plans for growth they think of the bottom line and that essentially means financial profit economics can we make money through this new growth new innovation new development et cetera what elkinton is suggesting is that very often that comes at the cost of two other things which is social needs people and the planet so what he suggests we do when we think of any new
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development is we think of the triple bottom line not just profit but also people and also planet so he's defined triple bottom line as something that looks at the financial social and environmental performance of the corporation over a period of time not just today or tomorrow but over a period of time so tbl or the triple bottom line essentially is thinking of environmental responsibility social equity and economic viability before embarking on any sort of a new innovation or design project
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one really significant way of thinking about the impact on the planet of environmental impact is by thinking of the entire life cycle of the things that we produce not just the time that it's bought sold used but from the very initial moment when the raw materials for that thing are dug out of the earth to the time that it's thrown back into the earth that is life cycle thinking think of the complete life of the product and for this presentation we'll focus on on products on physical devices
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things that we use rather than buildings or interior spaces or graphics these products give a good tangible sense of how to think of the notion of sustainable design in this presentation so life cycle thinking has five key components it thinks of raw materials manufacturing lifetime use transportation and finally the end of life and let's look at each one of these in a little bit more detail if you think of products like a cell phone for example what is often thought about by designers is one
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slice of time the lifetime use can i design it for the person that is going to use this device over its lifetime and that could be six months nine months ten months one year however it's very important for us to think a little bit longer we should think of the raw materials of which the devices are made we should think of how they're manufactured we should think of the amount of transportation that happens over the life of this product and finally what happens at the end of life
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what you see here is a very linear process right from raw materials to end of life i think what's very critical to think about is another way of thinking about it is more cyclical let's look at that in just a second if you think of a building instead of a product how is a building imagined but there is the operation once the building is erected how is it used but just like the product there also are some other components to it one is the design how is it created the second
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is its construction further down the road it's maintenance and what happens to it when it's demolished it's end of life as well so in both cases for the product for the cell phone and for in this case the uh the building you've seen that this is a linear process a straight line i think what's more critical for us to think about and this becomes a part of sustainable design and development is to think of these very same components in a very cyclical format so it's not just that it starts
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here and ends there but can we think of them as a cycle can we say that at the end of life what is left behind ends up becoming the raw materials if we do that we have a some sort of a closed loop and these closed-loop systems tend to be a lot less wasteful a lot less polluting a lot less problematic than these linear open-ended systems so can we think of the same thing for the building can we think of three phases the pre-building phase which includes things like
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extraction of the materials processing of the materials creating the bricks manufacturing transportation the building phase itself when you have construction operation and maintenance and finally the post building phase where it's waste management recycling and reuse this becomes a lot better as a system as a mechanism as a structure rather than erect and demolish right this becomes a lot more life cycle based way of thinking about the building and a lot more sustainable as well
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so what we see in this slide is we three three scenarios you have the current situation on the top left we have one solution and the bottom left and the third solution on the right what's happening in the current situation in terms of development we have resources the resources which you see in the form of the icon of a battery resources are depleting over time products the number of products we create are increasing over time because there's more population and therefore
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the amount of pollution is increasing over time the amount of waste is increasing over time so this is the current model we have resources that are depleting we have increased population therefore more products and more production also means more waste this needs to change because this is unsustainable one of the solutions that you see on the bottom left is solution one which is refers to the three r's which is reduce reuse recycle so can we reduce the amount of resources we use
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yes that's possible can we reduce amount of products we make is possible and can we reduce some other waste can we then convert some of that waste back into resources into raw materials and reuse some of that waste to create a more sustainable planet this is definitely one solution but this is referred to as a solution which is being less bad we are not completely being good we're being less bad we're losing less resources less products and less waste another model which you which you see on the
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right which is referred to as c2c this is uh called cradle to cradle this was developed by mcdonough and broncard what they say is in terms of resources let's use renewable resources like solar energy like wind energy et cetera these are renewable we're not depleting the earth of things like fossil fuels that cannot be replenished as quickly but we are using renewable resources we do need more products over time that is that is bound to be but we are reducing waste so what they suggest
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in terms of thinking of cradle to cradle is that we have a technical cycle and a biological cycle right and what should happen is we think of the technical cycle also as a biological cycle so if we have biodegradable materials if we have things that can be reused as raw materials we are creating a system by which we are going from cradle to cradle nothing is actually being wasted it is all being reused back as a part of the system this is called cradle to cradle and it's
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a lot more sustainable solution in terms of moving forward with design but let's look at those five things that we talked about with life cycle assessment or life cycle thinking raw materials one of the design strategies is to use use low impact material things that have less impact on the planet things that have less impact on the environment things that have less embodied energy in them that's one thing we can do you can also use non-polluting materials so for example instead of plastics that
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will stay in the landfill forever can we use biodegradable materials that will disappear and leave no trace behind one strategy that is often used by designers is not to mix materials so if you have a product that uses five different materials it's a lot harder to recycle that than if you have a product that uses only one material right it's a lot more difficult to have multiple materials but if you do have to have multiple materials design it so that it can can be disassembled so if you have a
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product that has a plastic casing metal components inside and something else happening inside as well is it designed so it can be quickly taken apart so you recycle the plastic over here you recycle the steel over here you recycle the copper over there that makes it a lot easier and a lot more sustainable use long long-lasting materials so in cases where you need to have a durable product that lasts a long time that doesn't end up in a landfill how about using materials that actually age well
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using metals using glass those kinds of things become a lot appropriate in these situations and one final thing is to use local materials can we use materials that don't have to be transported over long distance but can be found locally thereby minimizing transportation minimizing cost and therefore minimizing pollution as well here are some examples these are containers that are made from biodegradable polymers so these are things that you can actually after you're done using them
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you can throw them out into a composting unit and over time they will degrade and leave nothing behind very unlike the polymers that we use today which are not biodegradable similar thing cutlery right we can design cutlery that had that can be made with materials that degrade over time these are single use items like forks and knives and spoons in some cases you might need to have single item use and that's okay as long as they do not leave impact on the environment for a long
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time this is packaging this is packaging that is based in starch so when you're done using the packaging these are often referred to as peanuts that are put in boxes once the packaging has arrived where it needs to you can either reuse this for the next time you want to ship something out or you can dissolve this in water and throw it out and it's completely fine it's completely harmless to the environment this packaging these days the clear packaging that you see here for the salad
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actually is biodegradable packaging this is made from biopolymers that again do not leave a trace on the environment however one thing to keep in mind is that if you can avoid using single-use items if instead of using plastic forks and knives you can use metal this lasts a lot lot longer and therefore potentially could have a lot less impact on the environment very often this question comes up in in shopping should you use a plastic bag or should you use a paper bag
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research has shown that if you compare the two the impacts of the plastic bag are actually a lot less than the impacts of a paper bag there's several reasons like the paper industry is traditionally extremely polluting um paper degrades uh but it holds sometimes a lot less than the plastic bag in transportation you can ship a lot more plastic bags in one container than you can to paper bag so there are several reasons why plastic is better than paper but think of the problems of plastic so this
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is an example where very often plastic has been found inside the bodies of animals so some turtles have jellyfish as their as their food in some situations when they see these plastic bags they look like diaphanous jellyfish and they devour these plastic bags creating blockages inside the animals and therefore therefore killing them in the process what is much better rather than paper or plastic is reusable bag so if you go to the grocery store take a bag that can be used over and over again
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like a cloth bag or something that can last a lot longer than a single trip to the grocery store so that's raw materials let's look at the next life cycle phase manufacturing room temperature manufacturing is supposed to be a lot lot better because it cuts down on the amount of energy significantly right one thing other thing that can also happen in manufacturing is minimizing waste can we design manufacturing such that there's a lot less waste that's generated
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and therefore making the process a lot more sustainable reducing the consumption of energy in the process is also really important cutting down the amount of pollution a lot of industries like the paper industry for example is extremely polluting in terms of the water lots of industries need a significant amount of water in terms of cooling in terms of transportation can we cut down emissions in the air so by cutting down the pollution of air water and soil we
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might have a much better and much more sustainable manufacturing process what you see in this case is high temperature manufacturing where metals are molten to be poured into some sort of mold and this as you can imagine as you can see this photograph requires enormous amounts of heat generating this amount of heat means an invoice enormous amount of energy so one of the things that can be done is to move to things like additive manufacturing or what's often
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referred to as one form of 3d printing which gives you as you can see in this photograph a lot more interesting shapes these shapes would be very difficult to manufacture with traditional manufacturing techniques and so things like 3d printing what you see here are 3d printers they do additive manufacturing they build a product or or a thing layer by layer so there's a nozzle there's some kind of a polymer some kind of plastic that slowly builds the product layer by layer
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and this happens at room temperature right so you do not need the kind of massive energy consuming systems but so this form of 3d printing or additive manufacturing could be something that we could use in the future as a form of sustainable manufacturing let's look at the third phase lifetime use what happens to the product that during its lifetime when people are actually using it one design strategy is to make sure that things are not used and tossed out but they're used over a
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long time so can we design durable products can we design things that people don't toss after a few days creating waste but something that lasts a long time can we reduce energy consumption one of the things that's happening these days in terms of the design of washing machines for clothes washing is cutting down the amount of water they use and cutting down the amount of energy that they use that makes products a lot more sustainable can be a reduced amount of waste that's generated can we cut
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down the amount of things that are tossed out into the landfill into the trash that'd be one really important thing of doing sustainable design so what you see here is a chair designed by the designer philippe starck it's called the hudson chair this is made from aluminum it's one material only that's used in this chair and what it does is if you have to recycle this chair it becomes a lot easier it also is a product that lasts an extremely long amount of time it's a durable product
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it's designed for one material and in terms of lifetime use it extends the life of the product making it a lot more sustainable what else can we do in terms of sustainability right what what else can we think of if we want to use better sources of energy there's things like wind energy this becomes a renewable form of energy it does not rely on fossil fuels and if we start shifting our energy energy systems to such forms such as renewable energy like wind or like solar these are products these
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are lights designed using solar energy we start moving towards a lot more reduced impact during the lifetime of the of the device itself next up is transportation the fourth aspect of life cycle thinking we live in a global economy we live in an environment where things are designed in one place manufactured in another place and sold in a third place this happens constantly this is the global economy in which we live however what that means is that things are transported
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over wide distances and that means that there's pollution in the process shipping containers ships planes trains cars are constantly shipping goods from one place to another and in that process they're creating pollution if we are able to minimize transportation we can cut down impacts and therefore make the system a lot more sustainable one thing we can do if we have to transport things is use forms of transport that are a lot less harmful they're a lot less polluting for example
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shipping something by planes sending them over over air is probably the most polluting form of transportation perhaps you can cut that down and use other forms of transportation that make it a lot lot safer for the environment one other thing that we can do is how about using only local materials and local conditions in that case we don't have to go out long distances to find the materials that we need we use local materials this happens quite commonly in architecture
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where architects will use only the materials only the clay or the stone or the wood that is found in that specific location thereby cutting down the amount of transportation that happens in building that that structure what this would mean is that you have to set up local supply chains can you reach out to manufacturers that are local can you reach out to raw material supplies supplies that are local can you reach out to people who who can maintain the product locally
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this becomes a good way of minimizing the amount of transportation and therefore making the system a lot more sustainable what you see here this is a very typical form of transportation of goods these large shipping containers large tanks come from all over the world transporting goods supplies and materials all over the world again creating enormous amount of water and air pollution in the process and the final stage of life cycle thinking life cycle assessment is what's called
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end of life what happens to the product after you're done using it does it get tossed out does it get thrown into landfill is it recycled is it reused in some way the more we think of the end of life the more sustainable systems we can create one thing is can we extend the life for the product so that when it does end it happens over a long period of time can we design chairs that will last people a lifetime can we design cars that last 30 40 50 years so designing for durability is one
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really important strategy that sustainable design participates in but if it is something that does has to die it does has to end its life can it be recyclable can we design so that all the components everything that that product is made up doesn't get tossed out but ends up back into the system in some form in some fashion to do that we'd have to design for disassembly if a product contains 15 different components and therefore 25 different materials can we design it so that there are screws
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that come apart there are snap fits that come apart it's easy to disassemble the product and therefore it's easy to recycle as well if you have a situation of mixed materials it is not possible to recycle the product there are certain situations where certain films have metal film on one side and plastic on the other side there are certain cans that are metal on the outside and plastic on the inside those are inseparable and therefore non-recyclable so one way to keep in one
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thing to keep in mind with terms of endometrial end of life is if it's a single material or if it's a material that can be separated we can recycle it and therefore cut down the process of going to the landfill this is what typically a landfill could look like right we have a whole range of different kinds of materials you see tires you see metal you see plastic you see glass all of that is a part of this landfill if we have means of separating this if you have means of
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making sure that we are able to extract some of these things from here we can cut down the process of moving things to the landfill therefore cut down the waste therefore cut down pollution and therefore make things a lot more sustainable so in terms of reducing if reduced repair recycle is the way to go which often is considered a good way to be more sustainable let's cut down on things like these these are single-use batteries batteries include lots of toxic chemicals
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reducing the number of batteries we use can be really good way of making the world a much more sustainable place recycle if printers scanners copiers etc end their life can we find ways by which you can separate them recycle them reuse them for something else let's find means of repair the car industry has done a very good job of making sure that the cars are repairable the lights can be extended very often that does not happen with electronic products electronic products get get thrown out
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simply because it's difficult to repair them but can we design for repair can we make sure that things can be opened up things can be swapped out things can be changed parts can be removed to make sure that we can extend the life of these goods simply by making sure that they can be repaired so what we can do in terms of thinking of sustainable design is to look at all aspects of the of the device what raw material is it made out of how is it manufactured how is it used during its lifetime
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how is it transported and what happens when it dies and if we think of these five phases of the product and if you think about it carefully if you think of reducing impacts we can make the world a lot more sustainable so these are some of the environmental issues we've talked about in addition to the environmental issues remember sustainability refers to people profit and planet if you think of the social issues what are some of the social issues human health we should design products
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that do not impact human health in a bad way you think of health of humans but also entire societies we should also make sure there is access access to opportunity very often people who work in factories that make the products that we use today work on assembly lines they don't have means of progressing they don't have means of improving their learning they don't have room for development can we design can we create system by which we give people access to opportunity we give we allow
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people that encourage people to improve their lives as they work longer and longer and to think of also labor conditions what kinds of conditions are seen in factories how can we improve those conditions and what can we make what can we do to make sure that people who make our products has just as good of a life as people who use the products that we make so factories typically have environments that are complex have a lot going on these they have um assembly lines they have
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moving conveyor belts and these are difficult environments in which to work very often the work is monotonous it's repetitive and it's very important for us to think about creating conditions in which workers can thrive that they can take pride in the work that they do and we as consumers can also take pride in the fact that this was made in conditions where people actually enjoyed working in these factories enjoy doing the work that they do so what we've talked about today is
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is thinking about sustainable design thinking about not only the product at one point in time but the product at the entire through the entire life cycle from the materials in which from which it was made raw materials through how it was manufactured through the amount of energy it uses during its lifetime and how long it lasts to how long how far it was transported from and what happens to it at the end of its life if as designers we think of all of these aspects of a product we can cut down
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impacts we can cut down resources we can manage these things a lot better and make the world a lot more sustainable thank you
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