Sustainable design. Sustainable fashion. Sustainable living. We often hear these terms in marketing campaigns and popular media. But what does sustainability mean and why does pioneer of User Experience DesignDon Norman think that sustainability shouldn’t be our goal when we design? Watch the video to find out.
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As Don Norman emphasizes in this video, how we communicate is as important as what we communicate. Just as the idea of sustainability doesn't capture the magnitude of the work ahead of us, a 2-degree increase in global temperature doesn't convey the gravity of our situation. We must show how that slight increase has disastrous consequences for millions—from extreme drought to devastating hurricanes.
What Are Viable Alternatives to Planned Obsolescence?
Planned obsolescence is the practice of deliberately shortening the life of a product to force people to buy replacements. Companies use three techniques to make their products obsolete:
Breakdown: Products that people cannot repair easily, or are extremely expensive to repair because the parts are exclusively available in select places or are expensive become obsolete through breakdown.
Progress: Products that are not designed to be upgraded easily, or new technology that is not backward compatible with older devices makes the older devices obsolete.
Fashion: When marketers pitch a certain look as new or fashionable, people with older (or previous generation) products feel they have outdated products. Even if these are in perfect working condition, people seek replacements.
One of the prime examples of planned obsolescence are smartphones and laptops that become obsolete within a year or two.
Case Study: Smartphones
Apple’s iPhones set the trend for “unibody” cases that did not have detachable batteries. Users can go to a service center and have the phone batteries replaced. But beyond that, the phone cannot be upgraded.
Further, Apple only allows certain retailers to do work on their products, and oftentimes voids warranties if anyone else modifies them. This forces the consumer to buy a new device instead of repairing the original device.
As opposed to Apple’s single-body devices, assembled desktop PCs allow users to switch out different parts of the machine to incrementally upgrade its performance without replacing the entire unit. Some companies have taken steps to make their devices as reusable and upgradeable as possible.
Fairphone is just one example of a company that looks beyond selling a product. There are limitless opportunities for such a model across every industry.
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Apple has faced criticisms for its design decisions and the e-waste that it encourages. To Apple’s credit, it has tried to reduce its wasteful practices. For example, the company has a trade-in policy that lets buyers get a new device at a discount. The company refurbishes the older device and sells it through its distribution chain. Apple also ensures all its operating systems are backward compatible, so that everyone enjoys the latest OS, even if they have an older device. Coupled with long-lasting hardware, the company pitches itself as a planet-friendly organization that reduces waste.
The Take Away
Sustainability means to maintain the current state. As the world continues to produce waste, landfills and carbon-emissions-saturated air have disturbed the ecosystem of the planet. If we were to continue to maintain the current state, the future would be bleak. In other words, we cannot sustain the unsustainable.
Businesses and designers must change the way we design and our business models. We must think of ways to make products repairable and long-lasting—we need to adopt a circular economy. More importantly, we must think beyond just selling products. We must consider every component of the system—where and how we get our raw materials, how can we make them as modular as possible, and how do we bring back older products and disassemble them to put them back into the manufacturing process?
A systems approach also allows companies to reduce costs and explore multiple revenue streams (for example, through the sale of spare parts).
Sustainability focuses on maintaining the current state of the environment and society, which implies that we are striving for a status-quo. But this won't protect the future of our planet and our species.
Our increasing and inefficient use of resources has knock-on effects including climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution, poor health and poverty. These issues are interlinked and in turn often exacerbate each other.
Additional reasons for a lack of Sustainability include: • Short-term market pressures for business profits. Lack of capacity building of professionals, such as engineers, architects, and accountants in how to achieve sustainable development.
Sustainability is ability to maintain or support a process over time. Sustainability is often broken into three core concepts: economic, environmental, and social.
One of the major disadvantages of sustainable development is that it can be expensive. The initial investment required to implement sustainable practices such as green infrastructure and renewable energy can be high. This can deter some businesses and individuals from adopting sustainable practices.
Nowadays, sustainability management focuses on preventive and corrective measures to address environmental problems. These include climate change, the depletion of non-renewable natural resources and environmental degradation in general.
We consume too much, in an unsustainable manner, and transitioning to sustainability is hard. It becomes even harder when we face multiple crises at the same time.
Sustainability is vital for development as it safeguards natural resources for future generations. Careless resource usage leads to depletion, hindering a country's development progress. Types of sustainable development include environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and economic sustainability.
noun. the ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, or confirmed. Environmental Science. the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance: The committee is developing sustainability standards for products that use energy.
Sustainability is the ability to exist and develop without depleting natural resources for the future. The United Nations defined sustainable development in the Brundtland Report as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Fundamental ecological problems such as resource scarcity, drinking water shortages, pollution and environmental disasters and global warming have become more important in recent years. Hunger and poverty are also on the rise, while biodiversity has been declining in recent years.
Our heavy reliance on fossil fuels and our habit of consuming fast fashion and fast food results in millions of tons of landfill waste, harmful gases, and polluted waterways.
Another reason sustainability is rarely achieved is because it requires a long-term commitment. Many organizations are more focused on short-term profits guided by their P&L, and may not be willing to make the necessary investments or sacrifices to become truly sustainable.
Introduction: My name is Pres. Carey Rath, I am a faithful, funny, vast, joyous, lively, brave, glamorous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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