Designing Ourselves into Trouble
Posted on December 20, 2007
Filed Under What's New |
Humans have an appetite for novelty coupled to a preference for the status quo. It’s a paradox that someone will no doubt one day conclude we’re born with; it’s in the DNA. In the spirit of pursuing our appetite for change I spent much of today talking with designers about how next year will pan out - are we at a tipping point such that next year all design will have to embrace environmental concerns?
At the same time, it being Christmas and work slacking of I did a tour of a few green and CSR sites as well as one or two concerned with new economics. I’ll come back to the new economics. greenbiz.com is a site I really like, full of information on how businesses can improve their green credentials. I am of course going on to criticise this movement.
First though some of its bloggers. Joel Makower runs a tight ship at sustainable business reporting on the various research studies that show how achievable dramatic carbon savings really are. Marc Gunther is doing an equally good job on his Corporate America blog. David Wigder, marketing, and Andrew Savitz, Triple Botom Line, are great blogs. There’s no question that collectively these are must read blogs for businesses dealing with the carbon problem.
The problem is I came away with the feeling that the day had already imbued me with after talking with three leading designers. Take Jens Martin Skibsted, whose urban mobility designs have popularised smart cycling. Jens was telling me yes, clients want to do what it takes to express those green credentials but you have to doubt how deep that goes. Unless…. he gave an example of Mateer, a Danish cutlery company that not only embraced green issues but opted instead for a thorough ethical approach to its business and went in search of value support systems that it could adopt. A sort of beyond green ethos.
Jim Northover too, brand guru at Lloyd Northover, made a telling point against the current corporate green trend. Jim argues that designers are being lured into providing partial solutions to marginal issues - for example using green lighting systems in airports, while the planners allow a new runway that puts 5 million more people up in the sky each year.
In other words it is not just that companies greenwash, we collectively do not force the pace on the fundamental issues of change.
With those thoughts in mind I come back to Marginal Revolution, Small Steps towards a Much Better World. The blog is run by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok who skillfully pick through the myriad ways that practical initiatives and appropriate incentives can make a big difference. having some of the anglo-saxon in me I know where they are coming from me.
Being a bit of a continentalist too though I have my doubts. My conversation with Jens Martin ended with him saying something like “the anglo-saxon model doesn’t believe planned change is possible. It operates through a model that believes continuous adaptation of highly fragmented systems is the only way. What this also means is anglo-saxon economies are built on continuous replacement of the bits and the pieces not on a holistic approach to the eco-system.”
That fragmented system and the continuous replacement of inefficient or broken parts is what gives us our sense that things are changing. So we can replace old light bulbs with new green ones and build the new airport terminal and the new runway anyway.
This is the kind of conversation I hope we can have with ethical bloggers in the US and the UK.
When you address green ethics at this level you know we are in trouble - even though the planet is creeping up to its tipping point our willingness to plan and act in response to that is woefully lacking. It’s the kind of conundrum those of us who advise companies might discuss more openly. Worth a conversation or two.
But so finally to the new economics. Take a look at this and tell me does it make you smile or cringe?
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