The Components which Make Up Sustainable Product Design
Sustainable product design is a factor which is proving to be ever more important in the fight to save and preserve the planet. Designers have now established standards against which any new product can be measured to see if it can be advertised as being sustainable. A label of sustainability is a major selling point, as an ever increasing awareness of environmental factors is ensuring that there is a guaranteed niche market for anything which genuinely has no negative effect on the environment. Design for a product which is marketed as sustainable must consider one thing above all else – can the process of creating the product be carried on indefinitely?
Associations have been formed which can label products as sustainable, according to the strict standards which are set. The criteria by which products are judged are simple enough to understand, but not so simple to evaluate. The entire life of a product is assessed, right from the moment the raw materials are extracted from their source to the moment when the product is discarded at the end of its useful life. All stages of the product's life have to be sustainable. That is, they have to be duplicable over an indefinite period of time.
New accounting systems have been devised to allow sustainability to be taken into account when evaluating products. The conventional accounting system only considers one factor, and that is financial profit. The new expanded accounting methods consider extra factors, which are of equal if not even greater importance in creating an improved living environment for all citizens. The environmental factor is given primary consideration, and social factors are taken into account as well. By using a more accurate system of accounting, we are now in a far better position to evaluate which products truly do have sustainable design.
One of the most contentious issues with sustainability is the issue of packaging. Packaging is nearly always considered to be just a useless addendum to a product which provides no real value, and which simply wastes resources. Much of this is true, but there are of course cases where packaging is necessary in order to prevent damage to a product during transit. The packaging industry has its own standards, and its own associations which uphold these standards and issue labels based on these.
The product and its packaging need to be considered as an integrated whole when evaluating sustainability. If either has even the slightest element of permanent damage to the environment, then the product cannot be considered truly sustainable. That is not to say that it should automatically be rejected, but practical considerations have to apply. However much we want to protect the environment, we have to live in the real world as it is today. Often, this means compromise. The good news is that there are a great many situations where we truly can make a sustainable choice, and that is largely due to advances in sustainable product design.
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