Green Thinking - Lecture 13 - 1-12-11

This lecture linked into/carried off from the Designers and Ethics lecture, from a couple of weeks ago.

I think this is a very personal subject. Some people have very strong beliefs about ethics, and being green, but other people may not have such strong beliefs. I personally stand on the fence, but I would like to think that if something came up, which I didn't agree with, I would stand up for what I believe, and walk away from it.

Greenwash is where more is spent by the company (or government) on advertising their greenness rather than on investing on environmentally sound practices. I think that this is wrong, and rather than shouting about what they do that is environmentally friendly, they should just get on with it, and start using environmentally friendly processes, and then these will speak volumes for them.

80% of the environmental impact is determined at the design stage. When you put it this way, you can tell that something really needs to be done, especially in the design sector. Shouldn't we choose/consider the things that we use more carefully?

Last year, a new product was launched nearly every 3 minutes, with most of these products involving the inefficient use of energy, water and natural resources. All these ideas, images, symbols and forms has as their outcome unsustainable consumption. This links in to the last lecture, that when you look around the shops, especially at this time of the year, you see so many things to buy, and a lot of it is a load of rubbish, and you think 'who would buy this?'. A lot of it is just a waste of time, and energy, which we will never get back.

The biggest company with carbon dioxide emissions is EXXON, which produces 146m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, which equals the annual emissions of the United Arab Emirates.

An interesting view point on this is Michael Johnson's, which was if you type in Google, 'sustainable graphic design', you only get 1,000 hits, but if you type in 'helvetica movie', you get 15,000 hits. I believe this provides a good overall view of where we are at the moment, in respect to the design stage/sector and sustainability.