Viable Design

In the world we live in today, people are mostly focused on personal gain no matter what the cost of that gain may be. Even the most commonly known resources, like water, oil and coal, are all resources that cannot be renewed, or to be more specific, sustained. However, as time passes, people are more and more open to consider sustainable resources. It is well quoted that about 80% of the economic impact of a product or service can be decided in its design phase. As such, a design which considers the negative impacts a product or service will have on the environment or the stakeholders of that product or service. The goal of sustainable design is to achieve maximum profits from the product or service while also having minimal negative impact on the environment and people; this is Eco-design strategy. Yes, this does mean that companies will have to compromise a bit and settle on something that is beneficial to all parties, not just themselves, but in the long run, a product with sustainable design is surely to be most profitable to everyone.
Sustainable design principles include the ability to:
Optimize site potential;
Minimize non-renewable energy consumption;
Use environmentally preferable products;
Protect and conserve water;
Enhance indoor environmental quality; and
Optimize operational and maintenance practices.
Long before twitter hash tags promoted sustainability, sustainable design pioneers, such as Victor Panek and Buckminister Fuller, dedicated their life trying to figure out how to make design that reduces negative impact on the world. Since then, the concept of sustainability has evolved and with it the framework for thinking and implementing it. As such, for those willing to make this change, there is a upside to all this as today we have well established tools and techniques today that a designer can utilize that ensures the product meets it’s functional, market and sustainability needs. The ecodesign strategy set for sustainable design comprises of techniques such as Design for Reusability, Design for Modularity, Design for Longevity, Design for Disassembly, Design for Dematerialization, and, much more. Research for evolving sustainability resources and design has been around for years so it’s no wonder that it has evolved so much. We now aim to build a circular economy where products will have a closed loop life cycle where its end point will meet the starting point, as compared to the take-make-waste linear model adopted before.
Progression in sustainable design can be seen in The Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005. This act addressed the U.S. energy production while also involving building-related provisions to “design new federal buildings to achieve energy efficiency at least 30 percent better than ASHRAE 90.1 standards, where life-cycle cost effective.” Nineteen federal agencies signed a Memorandum of Understanding pledging to “federal leadership in the design, construction, and operation of High-Performance Sustainable Buildings” in 2006. This understanding brought upon the Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings and thus encouraged people to make buildings with maximum profits to them and the environment.
With this, we see if sustainable design progresses at the rate it is now, soon we will have much eco-friendly world than the one we live in today.