April 11th, I attended the local tour stop of Design Green Now, a seminar that explored green and sustainable product design & development. This article is Part 2 of a series that highlights the panelists, their presentations, and issues discussed during the Q&A.
Nathan Vanhook
Art Director, Senior Wetsuit Designer
Body Glove
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Body Glove, a water sports equipment and clothing manufacturer, decided three years ago to develop an eco-friendly line of products as part of a first step in transitioning the firm. Nathan was part of the development team that began first with life jackets (aka Personal Flotation Devices), then later with wetsuits and shirts.
The primary goal was to replace the foam, Neoprene, with an alternative material that could provide the same elastic and insulating properties. Neoprene is a DuPont product that is a form of PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), that has additives called Plasticizers to make it soft and flexible. While PVC has been widely used around the world to make a variety of products, the material has been under growing international scrutiny for the last 10 years. This is because some of these additives are bio-hazardous and have been shown to leech/offgas after initial production and over time. Additionally, PVC (like all plastics), is petroleum-based.
Nathan recalled to the audience his first experience visiting their manufacturing plant in Donghuang, China. While being an eye-opening experience in many regards, Nathan told how he entered a poorly-ventilated massive room filled with new life jackets. The air had a strong chemical smell; a few workers who were affixing tags and performing quality control, weren’t wearing any protective gear for handling nor breathing. The experience awakened Nathan to the sobering reality of China: low cost labor, short life cycle designs, no environmental regulations, and a massive impact on the earth in terms of manufacturing volume.
Body Glove was able to find in Japan, a suitable alternative made from organic compounds. While this was great, the foreign procurement would mean adding to the products’ life cycle mileage - a new aspect that simply now had to be accounted for. From materials’ origin to factory, U.S. warehouses, and on to local surf shops, the products had a total of 8,806 miles. Nathan explained that while eco-friendly materials are definitely one of the most important aspects of sustainable product design, one should think about the total travel distance in life cycle analyses.
When asked during the Q&A about tools and processes helpful to design & development, Nathan heavily promoted using the Internet as a global research tool for materials science information, alternative sources, applications, and suppliers. New developments and best practices in sustainable materials and construction are happening around the world; designers and architects can learn a lot by looking outside their borders.
In closing, Nathan mentioned the Iriquois native Americans considering the impact of their activities for the next seven generations - a wise and responsible forward-thinking philosophy that we as mankind should apply today.
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Design Green Now - Article Series:
Part One: Heidrun Mumper-Drumm
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For additional information about Nathan, please see his profile at DesignGreenNow.
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