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Nathan Shedroff is seen here speaking at the “Digging Deeper” Event hosted by the IDSA in SF last summer (graciously captured for us by the folks at Lunar Design). Here are some of the highlights of the presentation.
LCAs (life cycle analyses) are accurate, but they require a lot of data and are expensive. However, their results may not give us the expected answers we’re looking for to make a clear design decision. A seemingly ‘green’ product may have in many areas an equal score to a perceived ‘unsustainable’ product. So by themselves, LCAs aren’t great design tools.
An SROI (social return on investment) is important as a secondary consideration in design. ‘Green’ products made with bioplastic or recyclable materials - whatever have you - could be made irresponsibly with cheap labor in unhealthy environments. The major problem with social attributes is that the grading mechanisms and value assessments are subjective. What is fair and equitable? Secondly, how do we ethically decide between project scenarios with relatively higher/lower social and financial ROIs?
The reality is that there’s no way to satisfy all the desired criteria for a project, nor even know all the attributes and potential scenarios. Thus it’s designers’ responsibility to at least know the basics, keep them in mind, and rely on expert advice as needed.
Inspirational frameworks for these ‘basics’ may include the Hannover Principles, Cradle to Cradle, Biomimicry, Sustainable Helix, Natural Capitalism, The Natural Step, The Designers Accord, and tools like Lunar’s Designers Field Guide to Sustainability. While no framework/tool/philosophy is perfect and all encompassing, they are greatly helpful.
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