Design for sustainable behaviour

The global impact of designed goods and the role designer’s play in accelerating rapid, conspicuous consumption has long been recognized within the profession. As such, considerable effort has been directed towards reducing or mitigating negative environmental impacts caused by mass-manufacture and disposal through so called ‘end of pipe’ solutions. Less attention, however, has been placed on reducing the impact of use despite tacit acknowledgement among the design community that sustainable designs cannot reach their full potential without targeting user behaviour. Through increased focus on behaviour, and the implementation of suitably informative or persuasive strategies, designers can purposefully alter the way users interact with products to leverage more sustainable use patterns. This chapter provides design practitioners with an introduction to Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB). This is an emergent field of design practice which seeks to understand user behaviour in order to drive the development of products which encourage more sustainable use. Integrating inspirational case study examples drawn from their own and others’ practice, the authors chart the origins of DfSB and describe its theories, strategies and design processes. Tools to aid strategy selection are introduced and key ethical considerations reflected on in relation to specific design phases. The authors offer practical advice on designing, installing and evaluating design interventions based on experience and conclude with a discussion of the current limitations and potential future developments in DfSB

The effect of culture on sustainable behaviour in a design context

Over the last few decades the consumption patterns of the world’s wealthiest countries has led to the degradation of the environment and exploitation of the world’s finite resources. The developed world currently consumes at a level that requires up to five planets’ resources. The world average consumption, however, is a much lower 1.5 planets’, which is brought down by the lower consumption rates and more sustainable behaviours of developing countries. Culture is of particular importance, as the change in consumer culture in rapidly developing nations will have major consequences on global household resource use. Culture is a key factor in the formation of habits or routines that shape behaviours and lifestyles; however it has not yet been holistically explored in a design context. This paper introduces a crosscultural comparison of everyday household behaviours from an extensive study between the UK, India and Brazil. The findings show that culture plays a significant part on the resource impact of households due to the formation of habits and routines, with particular regard to bathing habits, washing clothes, meat consumption and energy services and the design implications of this are discussed

The status of sustainable design in Thailand

Sustainable design encourages manufacturers to consider social and environmental impacts whilst generating economic benefits (Macdonough & Braungart, 2002). Bhamra & Lofthouse (2007) state that sustainable design can provide business opportunities to organisations though cost reduction and increased marketability. Promoting sustainable design activity has the potential to stimulate the Thai economy by responding to a global trend in sustainability. Despite this, few manufacturers have the capacity to integrate sustainability into their products due to inadequate sustainable design knowledge. Various learning strategies and materials have been developed internationally, however, they cannot be productively incorporated into Thai design education for reasons discussed in this paper. This paper presents the partial findings from PhD research that proposes to develop a more appropriate approach for learning and teaching sustainable design in Thailand. It provides overview of education for sustainability, then outlines the current status of sustainable design in Thailand by dividing into three sectors: government, business, and education. The study commenced with a review of relevant literature and secondary data, which indicated a limited amount of material for the Thai context. Primary data collection was undertaken to address this shortfall through semi-structured interviews with experts participated in sustainable design activities. The findings indicated that Thailand has increased its focus on sustainability over recent years; a range of sustainable design initiatives has been carried out. However, the implementation of sustainable design in Thailand is not widespread because of three main obstacles. Firstly, imbalance between the three pillars of sustainability — most sustainable design activities have given priority to economic issues. Secondly, a lack of solid linkage among the initiatives — most of them have run individually and have not resulted in significant impacts. Thirdly, Thailand is lacking in sustainable design knowledge — most participants involved in these initiatives lack an understanding of this concept

Achieving responsible design within the commercial remit

Drawing on findings from research conducted in the UK and Ireland, this paper discusses what is required for responsible design goals; such as sustainable design, inclusive design and socially responsible design; to be addressed more widely within industrial design consulting. It posits that achieving an impact ultimately centres on commercial success, and to effect a positive change on society’s greater needs, therefore, design consultants must create persuasive and appealing solutions which meet the demands of the commercial context, and which fall within the expectations of the client and market. The paper explores the individual designer’s motivation and sense of responsibility to address society’s needs; along with the set of challenges facing the management and pursuit of design practice towards those goals. From this, a series of areas with potential to improve the spread of responsible design are highlighted; including: empowering designers to argue cases more effectively; increasing the design consultant’s sense of responsibility and intention to act; and improving the demand, recognition, and value these goals receive. The paper concludes that the success of commercial responsible design requires more sophisticated understanding, metrics and examples, which have greater relevance to business goals and the full set of participant parties