Responsibility in Design

We are living in a time where everyone is facing complex challenges that are testing humanity. In all of this, what is evident though… is that no individual can bring about change on their own. Now more than ever, we have a shared purpose and have never been as connected with each other than we are at this moment. Can that connectedness help us?

For the people who are not from a design background, it is essential to know that every thing we interact with on a daily basis involves design in some form. Design is a vast industry, but one challenge that is often associated with it is the linearity of its processes and how they impact the climate. Whether directly or indirectly, our industry has a huge influence on all life.

Looking beyond humans.

The past couple of decades has shown us that it’s going to take an enormous effort to reverse the negative effects of climate change on our planet.

Designing with a narrow human-centric approach has definitely benefitted us to create products that keep the core user experience in mind but it has also been detrimental in other ways by not looking beyond. We have to unlearn design as we know it and broaden our approach to include long-term solutions that will help build an equitable life for all. Space10, a research & design lab have summarised it well here in what they call a people-planet approach.

The situation today is certainly more than an inconvenience. It’s a matter of life and death in some cases. Just in the past five years we have seen tremendous negative impacts to livelihoods all over the world.

Design is part of everything, making designers powerful future drivers. But how much power do designers really have? The bigger question here would be, how do set a higher standard in the way we design the world around us?

How things are made.

Knowing how things are made, where the raw materials come from, learning the processes, will help us be more cognizant of how the same products are discarded. Without this knowledge, the common man does not know what ecological impact the products have.

Our industry has grown to populate the market with products day in and day out. So much so that the abundance is creating a lack of value.

Multiple raw materials procured from various parts of the world in unsustainable ways, manufactured by using fast and cheap processes that directly cause harm to the environment, sold to customers at discounted prices, and finally thrown away by people so precariously. We are far too disconnected from objects around us and how they have come to be. This in-turn affects how we use them. What someone would once have fixed, now they discard and replace.

When it comes to sustainability, it is often an afterthought or on the lower end of the list of priorities for product features or merely a marketing gimmick for some. When it should be a prerequisite. Transparency is necessary in enabling a more circular and sustainable approach to the design of products.

As designers and entrepreneurs in this creative economy, it is on us to share how the products are made. There are many advancements in the field of material science, utilizing that knowledge to build better products is a good starting point to the things we can do.

Solutions are everywhere.

In order to get an understanding of the way embodied carbon is measured and quantified in products, we need to first step back and assess our entire outlook of materials and how we use them.

Considering a product’s life-cycle beyond the primary use and understanding the environmental performance over the years helps us make informed choices while buying products.

Organizations such as EPD help us assess a product’s entire life-cycle. The process typically involves the full value chain, from raw material extraction through to the manufactured product, its usage stage and end of life. Any company or business no matter the size has the ability to publish EPDs. The transparent framework makes it possible to understand the calculations and methods behind the results in the EPD.

So the question remains, why isn’t everyone doing it?

Set a good example.

Leading design studios have a major impact on the entire industry as they work with big clients, setting certain “best practices” for others to follow.

It is crucial to create a work environment that is inclusive while taking serious steps towards better practices at all stages of the process. It gives the people working there a richer sense of who they are, what they stand for, and how they want to move forward in their lives.

These small but critical steps would allow companies to be more aware of their place in the world and be accountable for their impact.

A great example of what I mean: Foster + Partners who recently completed their first EPD to encourage their manufacturing partners and consequently other design firms to embrace sustainability.

As creatives, it is imperative that we push ourselves to design long lasting solutions that do less harm and add more value.

Live to see another day.

While advocating for better systems of production, we also have to advocate for better management of waste that our society creates.

Waste as it exists today is created by extracting and using limited resources in a linear system that isn’t sustainable in the long-term. As we see in nature, waste is not really wasted, it is a new resource which is part of a bigger ecosystem that regenerates and utilizes it. The sooner we understand and start to use these regenerative methods at large, the sooner we can affect change.

It starts with a simple mental shift, individually and then together. The responsibility is on all of us.

How can we evolve our current ways to include better alternatives in every industry? Let’s get this conversation started.

If you want to chat about an idea or just want to connect for future possibilities, write to me at udita@nonzero.space, I’d love to hear from you!