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Putting Eco-Effectiveness into Practice

mLAND, S.L.N.E.

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Five Steps to Eco-Effectiveness

As Albert Einstein observed, if we are to solve the problems that plague us, our thinking must evolve beyond the level we were using when we created those problems in the first place.

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Step 1. Get “free of” known culprits

Beginning to turn away from substances that are widely recognized as harmful.

They include such materials as PVC, cadmium, lead and mercury.

The decision create products free of harmful substances is in the designer`s head instead of on the ends of pipes.

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Step 2. Follow informed personal preferences

Find the right things to put together. The truth is, we are standing in the middle of an enormous

marketplace filled with ingredients that are largely undefined: we know little about what they are made of, and how.

Prefer ecological intelligence. Avoid substances and practices that are harmful to human and environment health.

Prefer respect. For those who make the product, for the communities near where it is made, for those who handle and transport it, and ultimately for the customer.

Prefer delight, celebration, and fun. It`s important for ecologically intelligent products to be at the forefront of human expression.

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Step 3. Creating a “passive positive” list

The X list. Those that are tetarogenic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, or otherwise harmful in direct and obvious ways to human and ecological health.

The gray list. Problematic substances that are essential for manufacture, and for which we currently have no viable substitutes.

The P list. It includes substances actively defined as healthy and safe for use, but they aren`t.

We are simply analyzing or ingredients and making subsitutions where possible.

Everyday product used widely in manufacturing has 138 known or suspected hazardous ingredients. It may stimulate the development of a new product line that will avoid the problems associated with the old product.

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Step 4. Activate the positive list.

Here`s where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop tryin to be less bad and start figuring out how to be good.

In culinary terms, you`re no longer substituting ingredients-you`ve thrown the recipe out the window and are starting from scratch, with a basketful of tasty, nutritious ingredients that you`d love to cook with, and that give you all sorts of mouthwatering ideas.

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Step 5. Reinvent.

Now we are doing more than designing for biological and technical cycles. We are recasting the design assignment: not “design a car” but “design a ‘nutrivehicle’”

Push the design assignment further: “Design a new transportation infraestructure.” In other words, don`t just reinvent the recipe, rethink the menu.

Sound fanciful? Of course. But remenber, the car itself was a fanciful notion in a world of horse and carriage.

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Conclusions

This final step has no absolute end point, and the results may be an entirely different kind of product than the one you began to work on.

It will be an evolution of the product in the sense taht it addresses the limitations you became aware of as you moved through the previous steps.

We begin by applying the active positive list to existing things, then to things taht are only beginning to be imagined, or have not yet been conceived. When we optimize, we open our imaginations to radically new posibilities.

We ask: What is the customer`s need, how is the culture evolving, and how can these purposes be met by appealing and different kinds of prodcuts or services?

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Five Guiding Principles

There are some things design innnovators and business leaders can do to help steer the transition at every stage and improve the odds of success:

Signal your intention. Commit to a new paradigm, rather than to an incremental improvemet of the old.

Restore. Strive for “good growth”, not just economic growth. Be ready to innovate further. It is time to keep making what you

are making? Or it is time to create a new niche? Understand and prepare for the learning curve. The ability to

adapt and innovate requires a “loose fit”-rom for growing in a new way.

Exert intergenerational responsibility. Imagine what a world of prosperity and health in the future will look like, and begin designing for it right now.

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Encuesta Infonomia sobre ecodiseño

Más del 40% de las organizaciones aseguran incorporar criterios ambientales en el diseño de sus productos, procesos y/o servicios.

Aparecen nuevos departamentos en las organizaciones potencialmente asociados al ecodiseño: diseño, innovación y medio ambiente.

Las razones principales para no aplicar criterios sostenibles en las organizaciones van en relación con la falta de estrategias ambientales o de ecodiseño.

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Oportunidad de negocio: “Servicios de Eco-Effectiveness ”

Desarrollo de producto eco- Desarrollo de estrategia medioambiental. Reconceptualizar el diseño. Búsqueda de ventajas competitivas. Reducción de consumo de materiales. Desarrollo de nuevos conceptos Optimización del final de vida