Influx Insights Tag Feed: sustainability

influx interview-design series- stiven kerestegian- sustainable designer

Influx Insights — 2008-05-23T19:41:36Z

Stiven Kerestegian is a sustainable designer who lives in the South of Chile where he is involved in several projects most of them related to sustainable design. He's also a partner in a full service production and design studio in Santiago and a sustainable product company Essustainable.

1. Briefly describe your background?

My background is in industrial design but I have worked in almost every related field from hardware design for Microsoft to conceptual or "innovation" design for Kodak to brand, packaging and web UI design for startups. Today, the projects I take on are as diverse as the market but more and more, clients reach out to me because they have an interest in sustainable or "green" design.

2. Sustainable Design is a current buzzword, how do you interpret it?

The concept has been around for a while. Victor Papanek and Bucky Fuller were among the first to start pushing for more responsible solutions to our everyday needs not because they were hard core environmentalist but because they realized that sustainable design, or design that uses nature as the developmental model is far superior especially as you look at long term solutions. Today I consider sustainable design that which incorporates social and environmental aspects holistically into the design process. The inclusion of these variables triggers unforeseeable innovations and cost savings.

Two key things are happening today that have triggered the green or sustainability movement, corporations are seeing value in more sustainable approaches and informed consumers are demanding more responsible products

3. How difficult is it for designers to think about sustainability? How do they know their actions are going to produce positive results?

The difficult part is getting informed you know, not only being on top of all the latest materials and processes etc., but considering a products complete life cycle into your design process is an essential aspect of sustainable design so this means more research in related areas beyond just form, function and experience. The great part is that it brings much more meaning to what we do as designers because we can measure results beyond just financial success, we can see social and environmental contributions.

4. Shouldn't we be producing better products that last longer or even encourage people to get more use out of old things, rather than producing new stuff all the time?

Yes, having fewer but better things would help but the problem we have today is not just that we are making and using too many unnecessary products, it's that we are making and using them in ways that are destructive to us and our environment. I don't think we have to stop being consumers, we just need to implement more sustainable models like the service model. The fun part is that we as designers get to redesign everything, we get to re-think the way we do most things and this needs to happen now, in our generation.

5. Consumers are addicted to the shiny and new, it's part of the thrill of consumption. How could we encourage consumers to think about this and should we?

I think that slowly but surely we are all starting to realize that good design is inherently "sustainable" and corporations and consumers will evolve their understanding of what is good design and what is desirable. The only reason why we need to consume less is because most of our consumption is unhealthy but if we can design and manufacture healthy products that are beneficial to us and our environment, then there would be a reason to encourage consumption.

Posted by Ed Cotton

thinking about the electronics we consume

Influx Insights — 2008-01-13T13:02:40Z

The other day, Piers at PSFK posted an angry editorial about CES.

"Another year, another electronics and gadgets conference that is out of whack with modern concerns around sustainability and the planet. The C.E.S. is an arrogant refusal to admit to the problems the electronics industry has created in terms of material waste, poisonous polution, energy waste and over-consumption."

He is not alone, today's New York Times Magazine has a great piece by Jon Mooallem called "The Afterlife of Cellphones".

The piece explores the world of cellphone recycling and tries to understand why we need to constantly upgrade our phones. Reading the article forces you to think again about waste.

Jon concludes;

"Even the most idealistic visions of how e-waste should be recycled and reused take for granted that consumers and businesses will never reconsider why we are buying and discarding so many of those products, so quickly, in the first place. If the rush of castoffs isn’t likely to stop, we need to clear a proper path for it, considering all the inevitable compromises and costs along the way and delivering those products to as consequenceless a place as possible."

Most companies seem pre-occupied with creating "lust' for their objects that ensures continued market share and admiration.

While on the surface, this doesn't appear to be a responsible attitude, it reflects the realities of the marketplace.

Consumer electronics are the new fashion, so much so, that they are taking share from the fashion business and it's one of the reasons the US sports shoe business is so soft right now.

The presentation below is from the design team at Nokia and it does a fantastic job at explaining how the company creates lust objects. It's all insights and needs driven, but it does nothing to bring sustainability into the mix.

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This is a battle about hearts, minds and marketing.

With Macworld coming up this week, Apple and Steve Jobs are masters in the creation and marketing of lust objects, they do it so well.

Governments aren't going to force the issue, pressure groups like Greenpeace have limited voice, change is going to need to come from the market.

If companies want sustainability to be considered, they are going to need to do as good a job as Apple in making it sexy.

On the positive side, it appears to be easier than ever for new brands to enter the consumer electronics space, just look at flat panel TVs for that.

Could here will be a new electronics brand with real sustainability built into its DNA that emerges in the next couple of years?

Could, somewhat ironically, that brand come from China?

Posted by Ed Cotton

spotted in the lower east side of new york

Influx Insights — 2007-11-22T18:18:56Z

Of course this is right on, but the definition of (what's BETTER?) obviously needs a few more store windows to define.

Spotted on a store window on the Lower-East side of NYC.

Posted by Ed Cotton

better for the environment- hummer or prius?

Influx Insights — 2007-10-31T10:41:12Z

Nathan Shedroff is a graduate of the Presidio School of Management's Sustainable MBA program.

He presented recently at the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design conference where he highlighted the problem with design and designers. His presentation highlights the massively complex challenge involved in creating products that are better for the planet, because the definition and proof of what constitutes "better" is hard to come by and hard work to generate. He does however suggest some solutions that designers should be taking and suggests that consumers may soon have the tools to understand if one product is truly "better" for the environment than another.

He uses the example of the Prius and the Hummer to illustrate his point.

The consumer is clearly looking for a simple solution and explanation to define what is better. They have no concept or understanding of "cradle to cradle" thinking and don't have the time to work it out for themselves. This makes it easy for brands to "sell" only part of the story and to convince the consumer that they're a better alternative.

Nathan suggests new ratings systems and evaluation tools might change this and make it tougher for brands to make claims they can't prove. However, these systems are currently in their infancy.

His complete presentation can be found here ::Nathan.com

Posted by Ed Cotton

the coming war on ingredients

Influx Insights — 2007-05-28T10:57:23Z

For years, the Hartman Group has been one of the country’s leading market research authorities on the consumers’ relationship with all things natural and green. They recently published a report on “Sustainability”.

Firstly, they researched the term itself and found it has little meaning for consumers.

“While the results of our research show that among everyday consumers the term "sustainability" is not widely used, not widely understood, and not very useful in terms of consumer product marketing, our findings clearly show that a cultural shift is taking place in terms of consumer awareness, acceptance and practices that relate to this term. Specifically there is a convergence between consumer trends in health and wellness and the broad scale use of the term "sustainability" by industry, the media and public interest stakeholders. From a marketing perspective, the umbrella term "sustainability" may be of little help to selling specific products (most consumers still are not currently going shopping saying to themselves, "I think I'll buy sustainably today"), but many of the concepts found within "sustainability" have the ability to resonate powerfully with certain segments of the consumer market.

Hartman also identified relevant consumer segments.

“Consumers within the World of Sustainability have different behavioral and emotional mindsets when it comes to how intensely they are involved with sustainable beliefs and activities, including orientations toward packaging, recycling and corporate transparency. Consumers at the “Periphery” of the World of Sustainability (16 percent of the population) tend to concentrate their awareness of risks on their personal lives and bodies, while those consumers most active in the world of sustainability at the “Core” (also 16 percent of the population) tend to extend their risk awareness outward from their bodies to broader environments ranging from their community to globally. In between periphery and core consumers with a sustainability consciousness, are Mid-level consumers, who comprise a substantial 60 percent of Americans. While they tend to focus on risks to the body, they also examine risks to their surroundings at home as well as in society.”

Interestingly, the starting point for any individual’s focus on the bigger issues starts with the most personal of all, what they are doing to and putting into their own bodies.

This is the reason why food safety and ingredients are becoming such a major issue for brands. We’ve seen it with E-Coli and spinach, with the bans on trans-fats, the research done by the Silent Spring Institute to identify 216 chemicals that cause breast tumors in animals and in the new “hot” issue about sodium benzoate in soda.

Influx believes that these events will trigger a rigorous auditing process of our food supply, lead by pressure groups and scientists to weed out harmful ingredients. Obviously, for brands, this is easier said than done, many of the ingredients are used to preserve shelf life. However, brands have the option of either standing by on the sidelines and waiting, while more “natural” competitors starting taking share or start taking steps themselves.