Defying planned obsolescence: preserve, conserve and sustain.
A point of view by Janak Mistry
Many of us, born in the 60’s are products of the paradise times, times when the world was on the upward curve of growth, when resources were ‘unlimited’ and progress was measured by industrial development.¹ But today, five or six decades since, the scenario seems to have changed. Years of technological development, mass production and our collective consumption has tipped the balance and has impacted not only our finite and dwindling natural resources but also climate on earth. Is it possible that we have reached a point in time when change for the sake of change to fuel our growth hungry model of development needs to be reevaluated and that as a collective, we need to introspect and bring about correction measures in the way we define progress?
In Hindu mythology, the holy trinity is represented by the three gods: The god of Creation- Brahma, the god of Preservation & Sustaining — Vishnu and the god of Destruction- Shiva.¹ This Holy Trinity represents the cyclical nature of life. Creation, preservation, and destruction are believed to coexist to maintain an equilibrium in the ecosystem that we live in. A part of traditional Indian value system was a preservation ethos that revolved around the 4 R’s: Reduce, Repair, Reuse, and Recycle. These values were articulated in the Ahmedabad Declaration on Industrial Design of 1979 for the rest of the world.²
The Declaration articulated a global mission for design: that “designers in every part of the world must work to evolve a new value system which dissolves the disastrous divisions between the worlds of waste and want, preserves the identity of peoples and attends to the priority areas of need for a vast majority of humankind’. But somewhere along the way as India went on to the path of globalization and excessive consumerism, it seems to have lost these values.
The major shift from preservation to creation in India happened primarily after the 90’s economic boom at the start of globalization, when delivering choice, change and convenience became the new mantras of the industrial consumer economy. The last three decades of this rapid growth in economy and consumerism has on the one hand generated opportunity and prosperity for many, but at the same time this progress has also adversely impacted our ecology and environment. Waste generation, air and water pollution as well as depletion of finite resources such as sand and topsoil are crises of our current times. The adverse impact of excessive production and consumerism has forced us to resuscitate the three R’s with renewed vigor, however the fourth R, Reduction of consumption, today may be a futile chase of the mirage in the horizon of a sustainable planet, especially with the ever increasing growth in manufacturing and consumer market demands. A possible way to ensure reduction in consumption is to build products that last longer and offer repair services that would ensure longevity.
Design, by definition, is about creation, pushing boundaries, being original and going beyond. But how often have we, at the time of creation, investigated the long-term impact and consequences of what we have created. Victor Papanek in his book Design for the Real world ³ foretold in the 1970’s that both Advertising and Industrial design are probably two of the most perilous professions that have worked hand in glove and are agents of many of the current crisis’s. It may be time to re define Design. Design to preserve what we have already created rather than creating for the sake of creation: Design in its Vishnu avatar.
Aldous Huxley in an interview in 1958 when he predicted the dehumanization of human beings said that mankind would be subordinated by his/her own inventions in which Science and technology and social organizations seize to serve man and instead become the masters.⁴ He said, “Man has replaced nature by science, morality by drugs, (and I would add, other devices of convenience) individuality by total conformity.”.
Design may be as culpable as science, technology, and industry in causing the gradual erosion of our ecosystem. Gandhiji warned us many years ago: He said that ‘God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West. If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts. Unless the capitalists of India help to avert that tragedy by becoming trustees of the welfare of the masses, and by devoting their talents not to amassing wealth for themselves but to the service of the masses in an altruistic spirit, they will end either by destroying the masses or being destroyed by them’.⁵
Design in India has developed alongside with science and technology. It started off as a part of a Nehruvian vision back in 1961 when the government of India invited Charles and Ray Eames to write the India report⁶ and set the tone for the launch of India’s first design school, The National Institute of Design. Today, 60 years down the road we have around 1900 design schools which collectively are churning out hundreds of design graduates every year. In the early 1960’s Design education in India adopted the western idiom and sensibilities which were built around industrialization and mass production. A country which was known for its frugal values, a rich craft tradition and culture suddenly was on the cusp of an explosive industrial revolution. Both Huxley and Gandhi’s warnings started to ring the alarm bells of caution. India was only 12 years independent and was about to enter its teenage. And like most teenagers. India too embarked on a heady journey of development and growth. It started being influenced and began to aspire, acquire, and emulate its more technologically advanced western counterparts.
The mantra for any capitalist society is growth. Growth leads to consumption and the two have a symbiotic relationship which generate many by-products. Technological advancement is one of the primary by-products of growth and it is stimulated by the need to survive in a fiercely competitive market. The challenge of growth and retaining the market share is what pushes businesses to constantly design and develop new products. We can therefor say that design is led by the business of growth. Over the years the relationship between business and design to provide products and services has evolved from being a conscious, need based one to an indulgence inducing excessive consumption based one. Can this process continue at the cost of using the finite natural resources on our planet? Shouldn’t we be making and consuming products that last rather than consume products that self-destruct and that require even more resources to dispose? Isn’t it time to bring about a behavior change in the markets addicted to growth and consumption in both, the business end as well as the consumer end by offering products and services that defy planned obsolescence ? Anand Giridhardas, echoing Gandhi, in his passionate speech at the Aspen institute’s action forum articulated that the biggest charade of our times, where ‘extreme winners’ of the corporate world who are responsible for nurturing the extreme winners, and on the other end broadening the divide between them and the extreme losers.⁷ Can the capitalists devote their talents not to amassing wealth for themselves by getting the masses to indulge in products and services they do not need but to serve the masses in an altruistic, conscious and a planet centric spirit?
Along with the 4 R’s, sustainability and green technology have also become the buzz word of our times. Many business practices today seem to hide behind these amorphous and often vacuous words which loosely seems to imply, we care about the environment. But we don’t have to look far for the counter evidence of this around us in our urban centres. The traffic on our roads and the resultant polluted air that we breathe, water and power shortages show that we care little, as long as our own needs are taken care of. Today we are way passed ‘peak oil’ and we have peaked many other natural unrenewable resources as well. As creative people, what drives us is to find solutions to all our problems. But many of our problems of today were solutions yesterday. Whether it is plastic bags and water bottles or the automobile and information technologies, these have originated as solutions that improved life, yet over time and an exponential increase in consumption, these once great ideas are today the harbinger of dystopian times and are no more sustainable solutions. On the contrary, they have become the wicked problems of our times. What then is the true meaning of this word sustainable?
The human body could be looked at as a perfect example of sustainability, as long as it is capable of maintaining a ‘steady state’. A ‘steady state’ is an in-built capability to maintain a balance. The human body has its own checks and measures for when it loses its balance. However, the body too has its limits of coping, beyond which it needs external support to help it restore the balance, ‘the steady state’. There is no living thing on this planet that is not aware, instinctively of this truth. As a matter of fact, the human species is probably the only one that knowingly and intelligently pushes itself beyond the tipping point of its in-built, self-balancing system. We do this to push the known boundaries in the quest for knowledge, often exploiting our limited resources to explore the unknown. As humans, we seem to have forgotten that we are as much part of the planet as the earth beneath our feet, the trees on the earth, the water in the lakes, rivers and oceans, the air we breathe or even the oil that we we extract. We are all part of a single ecosystem that is, the planet earth.
Sustainability is about how well connected we are to our ecosystem and how much of a steady state we maintain by being one with it. Sustainability is an umbrella, an ecosystem that comprises of a cohesive, interdependent set of elements. Our world is a ‘steady state’ in which the trinity of creation, preservation and destruction coexist and collude to maintain a balance, just like our own bodies. The question of sustainability arises only when this balance is disturbed. Sustainability became a matter of concern at the beginning of industrialization. Over a century of mass production has turned us into compulsive consumers and with consumption comes refuse! The turning point in the story of industrialization was the 1920’s when obsolescence was deliberately introduced in product manufacturing to ensure repeated consumption. Products were designed to fail prematurely so that consumers would buy more, leading to more consumption, the primary driver of our economies today. Today if one needs to buy a light bulb or a toothpaste we go to the supermarket and end up running a bill of Rs. 1000 each time we enter this temple of consumption. The retail industry knows exactly how to lure us to spend more than what we need.
The cycle of consumption comprises of use and refuse. Over time we have become more detached from what we consume. Basic needs such as water and food no longer come from our backyards but often from across the country or even across continents in highly sophisticated packaging. Unfortunately, as a collective we have focused more on Use, with little attention to the refuse we generate via consumption, thus making it unsustainable. Furthermore, consumers are more than ever before distanced from the impacts of their consumption, be it at the dramatic resource destruction or even human exploitation to produce and deliver the goods that we consume. So, despite being ‘informed’ in an abstract sense the end consumer, who is only increasing in numbers with products and services becoming more accessible, is unaware of the negative impact their consumption has on the ecosystem as well as the environment⁸
Gandhi had already warned us about the perils of individualized consumption in a vast country such as ours. Today, one could say that we have become consumers first as opposed to Citizens first. To reverse this rapidly growing trend, would it be possible for our policies to be steered towards a sharing economy, one which discourages the consumer to own individual products and encourages ‘non-purchase’ via introducing services that encourage sharing? Today, while the economic environment is fuelled by social media and a marketing and advertising high, manufacturing industry is having to constantly keep up with fast evolving technologies as well as compete in a highly competitive global market with ever changing trends. The designer has been complicit in encouraging the individualized consumption economy for many years now. This probably has a role to play in detaching the consumer further, not only from their immediate social networks and the downstream impact of the products due to waste and refuse but also from the upstream, social, and environmental consequences that the production of these products have. What than should be the role of a Designer, the creative catalysts of change and the pushers of boundaries?
In mountaineering parlance, reaching the peak is only half the feat. Coming down the mountain can be as hazardous and requires as much skill and caution as climbing it. Stretching this analogy, we have peaked oil, in many places we seem to be peaking water, clean air, forests, sand and innumerable other resources in a very short span of time. The question that we need to collectively find the answer to is what is our exit plan? How do we intend to descend the mountains of resources that we peak via consumption, without eradicating ourselves?
Once again taking reference from Anand G’s talk at the Aspen institute’s action forum, I think that the answers lie in the way we define our problems and the way we ask our questions. He asks: Does the world need more food companies donating playgrounds to children, or rather reformed food companies that don’t profit from fattening children? Does the world need more tycoons engaging in philanthropy, or rather more honest and less corrupt tycoons? I think that here-in lie the core to a sustainable future. A future of preservation beings by being brave enough to ask the right questions to curb our relentless consumption and following through with the right action and making the right choices at an individual level.
Ann Thorp in her article ‘The designers Atlas of Sustainability’ suggests that the fast pace of our lifestyles induced by the products of convenience has reduced our time, both for internal reflection as well as our connection with others.⁹ Convenience is often about speed of achieving an end goal but at the same time detaches the user from what otherwise would have been a slow and engaging experience which also leads to inner spiritual development. Sustainability and preservation are about an extended relationship with our environment, both natural and manmade. Consumption and mass production is going to increase with poverty alleviation and aspiration. What then should the designer’s role be in ensuring conscious manufacturing as well as conscious consumption to ensure a sustainable future. Some of the models that support this idea are: The Eternally Yours Foundation which seeks to strengthen and thus lengthen the relationship between people and products.¹⁰ Extending the life time of products and intensifying their usage are two strategies of environmental optimization of a products life.¹¹ Products could provide services with fewer physical resources. A washing machine or a hand drill are not in use all the time. Why not then these products become part of a Product Service Systems ecosystem such as a launderette or rent your tools service to reduce individualized ownership.
As for us designers we need to shift our focus from designing dispensable individualized products to focusing on designing products and services that are catalysts of behavior change that ensures resource saving and planet preservation. Designers need to develop products and services that encourage the interdependence of humans as against independence, citizens as against consumers. Designers need to defy planned obsolescence and encourage reduction in consumption by designing products that are easy to repair to prolong its life, products that are reusable and are also recyclable using minimum energy. More importantly, advertising and marketing also need to shift the focus from promoting products and services with a sole intent of selling more and push up the bottom line, to being the advocates of sustainability centric behavior change. It is only if every product and service designed is assessed and confirms to these parameters can we proclaim Design to be a sustainable practice that would ensure conservation of our planet.
Note: All photographs and illustrations are by the author
Bibliography
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- (ICSID 1979) https://designmanifestos.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/ahmedabad_declaration_1979.pdf
- Papanek, V. (2019). Design for the real world. ThamesHudson Ltd.
- Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace : 1958. (n.d.). Retrieved from You tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alasBxZsb40
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- Eames India Report — hci.stanford.edu. (n.d.). Retrieved March 9, 2022, from https://hci.stanford.edu/dschool/resources/readings/eames_india_report.pdf
- Anand Giridharadas: The thriving world, the Wilting World, & You : The Aspen Institute : Free download, borrow, and streaming. Internet Archive. (2015, July 31). Retrieved March 9, 2022, from https://archive.org/details/Anand_Giridharadas_-_The_Thriving_World_The_Wilting_World_You
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