AOB: DESIGN
Rising to the
challenge of
designing
the futuRe
Geoff McCormick, director of leading product design something that is both an asset and an improvement while most
company Alloy Ltd, a, looks at the challenges of delivering importantly also being environmentally sustainable. Change has
an environmentally sustainable world for the future and to happen, and for change to happen it must be led. In essence,
argues that the design community has a pivotal role to play what has been missing so far is a catalyst for change.
in delivering solutions that are both sustainable and suitable
for modern living. For the first time, green issues have come to the forefront of the
public conscious. Open a newspaper or switch on the television
T
he message of ‘environmentalism’ has been promoted by and there are the stories and images of a planet undergoing
a variety of groups and lobbies for several decades. The rapid and obvious change. People are ready to embrace
message, while compelling in many ways, has taken a long sensible, manageable answers to a problem they have difficulty in
time to be adopted by the public. For many years we have known processing at the personal scale. There is, however, an incredibly
about the benefits of recycling, yet we have not adopted recycling influential body of experts who, on a daily basis, shape lives. The
practices until relatively recently. Why is this? People find it hard to design community is eminently positioned, with an almost unique
comprehend that they will be able to make a difference. And why opportunity, to demonstrate just how user-centred innovation and
should they bother when their next door neighbour does not? well-delivered service design can produce dramatic results for the
broader environment.
The challenge of progress
The resources challenge
One of man’s most primeval instincts is to progress: from caves
to cars, from flint to fuel cells. Asking human beings to stop The first miners must have been amazed when they discovered
progressing, and in many ways reverse what has been created, is coal. Here was a seemingly unlimited supply of a product that
not a message people are comfortable with. could be used to provide power and warmth – and it was just
beneath the earth!
Everyone enjoys progress. We like living in warm houses, taking
holidays to foreign countries and driving wherever we want. So began a reliance on fossil fuel. Over time, as more and more
Somehow the environmental debate has centred on what we will coal was mined, so those mining had to go further underground
need to give up in order to have a future. So it is not a great to obtain this rich mineral resource. To start with this was nothing
surprise that the public reaction to the environmental debate has more than a short journey, but by the 1970s it was not unusual for
been somewhat tepid at best, at worst a downright stubborn miners to travel for more than two hours to reach the coal face.
refusal to become engaged at any level.
This was, of course, in no way an efficient use of time or effort.
Here is the nub of the debate. How can industry embrace progress What was once a seemingly unlimited resource had become
with an eco twist? How can we ensure that we use the limited and unsustainable – it had not run out, it was simply no longer efficient.
precious resources we do have to deliver everything we want? The response was obvious enough; start searching for other,
Smarter thinking is needed, to create better solutions and deliver newer ways to deliver on these established needs by embracing
other resources.
The lesson is simple. Once we have something, we cannot live
without it. There is a real need to understand and recognise this
proposition, as it delineates what is really a very simple challenge:
Geoff McCormick
though resources must be used much more effectively, the end
Director, Alloy Ltd
product must still deliver the same or better result.
The recycling challenge
The recycling process is a complex one because it involves a lot of
93 | ecoexecutive
Design.indd 93 18/4/08 17:00:44
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