Publish a post on their blog which relates to an issue of their own choice pertaining to the environment.

For example: A blog about money might write about how to save around the home by using environmentally friendly ideas. Similarly a blog about politics might examine what weight environmental policy holds in the political arena.

So here’s my take on what designers everywhere can do to help.

Every little bit counts

Save your money. This a simple step that everyone can get behind. I’m not saying to stop spending, but think twice before you buy. If the product you’re looking at is only going to be useful for a short time, or it’s an impulse purchase…maybe you don’t need it. As a designer I walk through the aisles of products and can’t help but think how many products out there are crap. Novelty items, poorly constructed, or just plain wasteful. Stop buying things that are so cheap that they will end up in the trash when they break in a month. Do you really need another gadget? Do your kids need a cheap, useless toy with their happy meal just because a new movie came out?

Buy smarter

Stop buying products that have better alternatives. No more incandescent bulbs, SUVs to commute to work in (or drop your kids off at school), and mass produced food. Compact fluorescent bulbs are getting cheaper everyday, and they save you money on your utility bills. SUVs are only necessary when you are taking more than five people, with cargo. How many times do you see single drivers in a 17mpg gas guzzler? What a waste, especially for the owner. If you don’t need the room why are you wasting your money? If more consumers stopped buying these beasts, maybe auto manufacturers would stop designing them. Most people don’t realize that mass produced food is actually costing them more than the fresher alternatives in the grocery store. If you are fighting weight problems diet soda is not helping you. Frozen dinners are not healthy even if they are from weight watchers. Fast food is the enemy.

Green is good for business

The economy couldn’t possibly be hurt by going green. Making smarter products that use less resources and are re-usable or recyclable costs more? Why? If something takes less resources to produce it should cost less. If you can reuse portions of the products at end-of-life for new products doesn’t that bring costs down? If oil and coal companies invested money into solar, wind, and hydro couldn’t they make just as much money in the long run? Why are we subsidizing ethanol, and corn for fuel when we could be offering these benefits to technologies that will improve mileage not degrade it? If a company made a product that would save you thousands of dollars on transportation costs annually by eliminating gas, filters, and oil changes wouldn’t you line up to buy it? Why couldn’t GM, Ford, and Chrysler make these products?

Going green can only hurt companies that can’t adapt to the changing market. Let’s help them on their way, whether that’s success or failure. We owe it to ourselves to design, buy, and lobby for products that help everyone, not just the people and companies that are already rich.

My biggest criticism of the project is that children, and people in general, don’t have to have computers to be fulfilled, or be productive in a global economy. Sure computers are used everywhere…but if a country doesn’t value or prioritize education enough to have schools and teachers, what quality of education will cool tools have? Don’t get me wrong I like computers, my kids like computers too, they can even learn things on them, but I wouldn’t want my kids offered free exploration of computers in the place of structured reading, writing, arithmetic, science, social studies, art and music. The OLPCs are exploratory toys, they have an wireless network connection, a web cam, and basic applications like word processing and a browser, but there is no content on them. No math or reading applications, no history lessons, or writing (they aren’t tablet pcs). The content is provided through the network, where all the PCs are link together in the community. The theory is that content will be written and distributed via their network. Great concept.

The flaw I see in the logic comes down to content again. I’ve been developing custom training for ten years now, and it’s a lot of work to write and develop. Not a task for people who are not PC savvy, or untrained in cognitive and child development. In a country where they won’t spend for schools and teachers, who will develop the content? If the content isn’t provided with the system when will it arrive?

My biggest fear is this is a loss leader for services by the PC providers, or worse yet a way to train the masses of underdeveloped countries to mindlessly surf the internet and click on ads to generate revenue. Worse still in countries that would benefit most from being the most efficient farmers and environmentalists to retain the precious resources that are dwindling in their country…is the United States the best country to be teaching them how to “advance”?

EDIT: There was a new article published to day on Engadget addressing this subject in US schools. Read More

All estimates at this point are indicating that we as a global community have between six and ten years before the climate takes a noticeable and rapidly accelerating tip towards making life on Earth quite a bit less pleasant for all of us. As many people may have seen An Inconvenient Truth (if you haven’t, do so this week) there is a growing urgency in the scientific community in regards to climate change and the effects it will have on all of us. If you are still in doubt, the scientists aren’t, please review the reports at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But where do we as designers fit into this problem?

When I was an Industrial Design student at San Jose State University there were underlying discussions about environmentally friendly materials, reduction of moving parts to increase life of a product, recyclability of products and many other concepts that would result in not only better products, but products that were better for us in the global sense. I would urge every designer that touches a product for manufacture, or as a consumer, to consider several questions:

• How long will someone use this product (it’s useful life)?
• Is there a way to extend the useful life?
• What is the recyclability of the product?
• What is the recyclability of the packaging?
• Are there alternate materials that would make it more recyclable?
• What is the impact of producing, using, and disposing of this product?
• Does making it more recyclable hurt the cost of producing the product?
• Does making the product more cheaply affect these answers?
• Is this product worth producing in light of these questions?

The way I see it there are two factors that determine a company’s desire to change; profitability, and regulation. A capitalist economy is driven buy profit, if a company can’t make a profit by doing something, or will incur a loss as a result of making a change it will avoid the loss. Regulation seeks to impose rules that will force corporations into making the hard decisions. Maybe it’s a way for the companies to assuage the stockholders, “they made us do it, that’s why you lost money”. There are a few clear indicators that seem to point out that companies are in no hurry to change how they do business unless they are forced to. Until the scientific evidence floods our homes, literally, designers have an opportunity to make a difference. We can make conscious decisions that will positively affect the products that we touch. Not only in the design and production of products, but our consumer purchases as well.

As consumers we are compelled to buy. We are told that it’s good for the economy, supports jobs, and it will make us happy. I’m guilty too, my shopping list is just as long as the next tech hungry geek. But think about half the stuff you buy; How long will you use it before you’re bored, it breaks, or is outmoded by something newer. I’ll skip picking on Microsoft (and their latest “must have” products that do the same thing as their five year old products) and go straight to Walmart and Ikea. Many will say yeah Walmart is evil, and Ikea makes crappy furniture, but that’s not entirely true, and is too general. Specifically I want to point out the multitude of cheaply made gimmick items that litter the shelves of stores, and the products that used to be built well but now in the interest of reducing costs are being manufactured to meet the lowest common denominator, us, the consumer. My kids see commercials every day that say buy this, it’s great! Almost all of these products are the same product that was available a year ago, or is of such trivial entertainment value that it will be thrown away in six months. Cheap toys that break, consumable products like play dough, and floam (why would anyone need that crap anyway???), A new model of Barbie for each new dress or make-up trend, action figures for each new movie that comes out with the same characters as the last movie. It may seem trivial but all this adds up, we spend more on little disposable things, and have less to spend on well made furniture and products that should last a lifetime. We have to shop at Ikea and Walmart to compensate for the multitude of small “insignificant” leaks from our wallets.

Where does it go? After we’ve had our fill, or used up our latest fad product it goes in the trash, into landfill, into the earth, the air, the water. How much use did we get out of it before it was “useless”. Cars fit into this equation as well as anything. How long before your car is too used to keep driving? Did it wear out, or break down? Is that new blinged out Hummer too cool to pass up, or is saving the earth too important to not buy a Prius? If you have to get rid of a car to get a new one, where does the old one go…the garbage basically. How was the new car made?; If a product causes more harm in it’s production, or end disposal, but is more friendly during it’s life is it ok? I like the ideas of electric cars, but have concerns about how the batteries are produced and what happens to them when they die, is there a significant impact on the environment? Consider that most batteries are either largely lead and acid, or heavy metals like Nickel, and Cadmium. Not only are these scarce materials, they are very destructive to obtain and dispose of.

Lastly excess…How much do we really need? Americans eat too much, drink too much, watch too much TV, and most of all shop too much. Do we need all this stuff? How much could we save if we cut our spending by 10%? How many people actually have a savings account, or retirement? How many people have more debt than income?

What’s the solution? Global warming is more than a problem of gas guzzling SUVs vs. solar panels and composting. It’s a problem of mentality. We don’t think about the consequences of our actions, not just for tomorrow, but decades down the line. If we can’t plan for our own retirement properly, how are we ever going to plan for saving the planet on a scale of hundreds or thousands of years. I think the real trick is small steps in the right direction. Spend less money on crap, save your pennies for a better produced, more valuable product, and don’t buy so much of anything and everything. Instead of buying a Prius, get all your friends to write letters to congress telling them that you want more MPG out of every other car on the road. Instead of making E85 “capable” cars that have no fuel available, figure out what the best solution is first, before starting down a path that is just as short-sighted as the present path.