peter eade part 1

Design for sustainability part 1 Peter eade

1. The term sustainability is used to describe environmental effects of a product. It refers to aspects like the products ability to be broken down naturally or if it needs a man made chemical process. It also refers to the source of the product and how the environment it came from can remain relatively unchanged despite the product taking from it. Also the life span a product has and its ability to be recycled.
2. Design for sustainability is when environmental issues have been considered during the design process. The product may have responsibly sourced materials, or the ability to be recycled easily. If the product has well sourced materials it can be produced for many years to come.
3. Carbon footprint is the effect a company or individual has on the environment. The bigger the carbon footprint the bigger the effect on the environment. Things like how far do products need to be flown or how wasteful are you with electricity are examples of factors.
4. Planet- The effect on the planet concerns things like deforestation and the ozone layer.

People- This concerns factors like if people are being exploited whilst farming the product or how industry may change their traditional way of life.

Profit- Concerns how much money the local community and the companies can make out of the product. The company must make profit to make it worthwhile for them to do what they are doing.

5. Eco efficiency refers to the amount of waste a process creates. If a process is eco efficient then there will be as little waste as possible.
6. Falkirk wheel is a good example as there is very little energy needed to turn it. Most of the movement comes from the weight of the top water tank being heavier than the bottom one. This pushes the wheel down.

Irn Bru glass bottles are another good example as they give the buyer the incentive to return the bottle to get 20p back. The bottles are then recycled, refilled and redistributed. If everyone did this no bottles would be needed again.

7. Designers should care because the people (consumer) does, if we ignore the sustainability issue the people might lose interest and buy other things.