Critical Debates - Task 8

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN

Sustainable design is mostly a reaction to global environmental crises, the rapid growth of economic activity and human population, the damage to ecosystems, the loss of biodiversity, the murder of nature for our eager of being richer. 

We are already seeing and witnessing all the damages we are making to the nature and all the consequences that those acts bring attached. We are trying to fix it by implementing sustainable design, but is that enough? Is that as fast as our mass destruction in the nature?

In my opinion we need to start engaging again with the nature, embrace more the nature, feel it more, respect more the nature and sustainable design might be a step for that, but we need more! We need to be fast.   

The planet that we have is being used in widely and unfair ways. In my opinion the future is completely unthinkable and dramatic. And the alternative for this problem, for me, at this stage is: unimaginable. 

We don't know yet, how to built a society which is environmental sustainable which promotes democracy, stability, human rights and achievable on the time frame necessarily to make it through the challenges we face. 

Sustainable design helps this process because its aim is to eliminate the wast we create, be sensible while using certain materials, etc and it can be applied in urban design, urban planning design, architecture, engineering, industrial design, fashion design, graphic design, product design, etc. Although it still not enough, it's a starting point! We should embrace sustainability in everything we do, we buy, we create because there are principles in sustainability that can be applied to everything, specially design platforms, like:

Low-impact materials: choose non-toxic, sustainably produced or recycled materials;

Energy efficiency: use manufacturing processes and produce products that require less energy;

Quality and Durability: longer-lasting and better-functioning products to be replaced less frequently;

Design for reuse and recycling: design products thinking in their after-life;

Biomimicry: redesign industrial systems on biological lines;

Service substitution: shifting the mode of consumption from personal ownership to provision of services like carsharing;

Renewability: materials that come from nearby (local or bioregional) that can be composted after being no longer useful.

We need to change our behavior, we need to stop being passive among this problem. We need to start building up a new way of life, more Eco-friendly, in order to promote a better world for our children and for us! We need to re-think our priorities. Human habits caused all these negative impacts have to change! We need to change our habits and our behaviour patterns among nature and the planet! We all depend on the planet in order to have water, food, air etc... we need to stop going against the planet, thinking that we can beat nature... we CAN'T and moreover, we NEED nature MORE THAN EVER! So let's embrace and take part of the planet and do everything we can to create and support sustainable designs!