Design, Sustainability, Business, Systems, Meaning - according to Nathan Shedroff, they're all there.

“If you’re not part of the problem, you can’t be part of the solution”. Beginning with that quote from a friend of Adam Kane,  Nathan Shedroff led a fast-paced and wide ranging talk on sustainable design at Auckland's Unitec New Zealand Mt Albert campus on Tuesday 13th of July.

Shedroff has the unusual combination of having worked and written about experience design, meaning in business and even sci-fi interfaces as well as sustainable design, giving his talk an interesting mix of approaches (in fact, he gave a range of presentations across the country focusing on different aspects of his knowledge). His talk at Unitec was based largely on his book Design is the Problem, but built on his previous talks in this area by more fully discussing systems and service design. (His slides aren't up as of yet, but a lot of the relevant resources are available at http://nathan.com/thoughts).

Hummers and Coffee Cups
One of the key points Shedroff drove home was the importance of appropriate measures and metrics (or, for those in interaction design, the IXD mantra "it depends"). For example, a study comparing the level of sustainability between a Prius and Hummer isn’t as clear cut as one may assume, for while the Hummer may have higher fuel costs, it conversely uses more common materials, less heavy metals and is potentially easier to dispose of.

Similarly, the argument of paper versus ceramic coffee cups depends on scale as the balance tipping point at which ceramic becomes more viable is at 70 cups.

Capital and Systems

Shedroff translates the typical triple bottom line model into one of human, financial and social capital (and wryly notes "if you frame things with the word 'capital', the businesspeoples' ears perk up")

In translating this into a design perspective, Shedroff says that "it's no longer possible to be concerned only with design, sustainability or business without understanding the other two." He lists a large range of skills with these such as design thinking and market economics, but more importantly:

"In the centre of design, sustainability, and business is .... experience ... and in that, meaning. With this also comes services and systems"

Systems thinking (Shedroff recommends "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows as a great primer, and notes that there is a lot more work on services happening in the UK than US) comprises of:

• parts/wholes
• stocks/ flows,
• centralisation/decentralisation,
• competition/cooperation,
• diversity/resiliency

As alluded to earlier, Shedroff explained that it's imporant to think about the service being delivered (e.g. coffee) rather than the artifact. However, he pointed out “the hardest thing about systems thinking is knowing when to stop”. Shedroff suggested the rule of thumb for thinking about a system is to move 2-3 times out from the artifact that you are working with.


Frameworks and Strategies

Shedroff gave a quick overview of some of the major sustainability frameworks available:

• Natural Capitalism/ The Natural Step™ - only cover parts of social/financial/human capital spectrum
• Cradle to Cradle - see the book of the same name, deep analysis but narrow
• Living Principles - all encompassing but so new many people don’t know how to use it
• Holistic Management - no one knows how to use!
• LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) - good (design-centric), but has to be comprehensive (i.e expensive) which is particularly hard if the data you need for benchmarking etc. isn't available. One successful example of showing the differences between two options was a case study (PDF) done comparing buying music on a CD compared to iTunes:
• Total Beauty™  a system by Total Beauty system by Edwin Datschefski  also with a book "The Total Beauty of Sustainable Products"
• Biomimicry - using nature where appropriate
• SROI (Social Return on Investment)
• Sustainability Helix

Some strategies were:

• Design for Use

  The most important point Shedroff had for designers was that design for use - and meaning -  is the the single most important way that designers can contribute to sustainability.
  
  “if you can design things that are meaningful, they're more likely to connect with and keep them.” - Shedroff
   
• Dematerialisation 
  
Shedroff used Apple’s minimalist aesthetic as an example of dematerialisation. He also shared the fact of the impact of weight: apparently a study in the 90s suggested that a Coke can lost in a plane would over its lifespan cost the airline $US1 million in fuel!
• Substitutionalisation & Localisation (Papenak had this covered, local is usually better)
• Transmaterialisation (turn products into services).
  Apparently Interface’s carpet system was not the success at this that we would be led to believe (the process and even just the mental model of renting carpet was too difficult for customers to get their heads around), but carsharing is proving to work.
• Informationalisation - in short, bits>atoms.
  Examples include books on the iPad (wouldn’t the Kindle be a better example of this?), and Architecture for Humanity’s Open Architecture Network that allows communities to download plans
• Reuse - may be unintentional, or intentional (e.g. Maille condiments)
• Recycling - design for disassembly, closing the loop (the most inspiring example is Kalundbord of Denmark's industrial ecology
• Design for effectiveness - Rickshaw Zero bags are designed for disassembly
• Strategies to Restore
  e.g. alpine pennycress accunulates cadmium and zinc, plants are being used in NY offices to clean air.

Shedroff finished with throwing the design kitchen sink (!) at all:

Linkroll:
CNW's 'Dust to Dust' Automotive Energy Report http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy
LCA study on music delivery (CD vs iTunes) http://bit.ly/CKQDs (PDF)
"Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows http://amzn.to/aUUy9t
Design is the Problem http://bit.ly/dguVYf
Total Beauty system by Edwin Datschefski http://bit.ly/daFSrk
"The Total Beauty of Sustainable Products" Edwin Datschefski http://amzn.to/cPadOb
Architecture for Humanity Open Architecture Network http://bit.ly/cupAJX
Kalundbord, Denmark industrial ecology http://www.symbiosis.dk/
Rickshaw Zero bags are designed for disassembly http://www.rickshawbags.com/

Notes: Most of these notes are compiled from my live-tweets of the talk. All screenshots taken from PDFs from http://nathan.com/thoughts . Also check out the pre-Interaction10 interview with Shedroff.