Principles of sustainable design

From wikipedia...

While the practical application varies among disciplines, some common principles are as follows:

• Low-impact materials: choose non-toxic, sustainably-produced or recycled materials which require little energy to process
• Energy efficiency: use manufacturing processes and produce products which require less energy
• Quality and durability: longer-lasting and better-functioning
  products will have to be replaced less frequently, reducing the impacts
  of producing replacements
• Design for reuse and recycling: "Products, processes, and systems
  should be designed for performance in a commercial 'afterlife'."^[3]
• Biomimicry:
  "redesigning industrial systems on biological lines ... enabling the
  constant reuse of materials in continuous closed cycles..."^[4]
• Service substitution: shifting the mode of consumption from
  personal ownership of products to provision of services which provide
  similar functions, e.g. from a private automobile to a carsharing service. Such a system promotes minimal resource use per unit of consumption (e.g., per trip driven).^[5]
• Standardization and modularity: standard, modular parts allow
  products to be repaired rather than replaced and promote
  interoperability so that systems can be upgraded incrementally rather
  than wholly scrapped and replaced.

Well, my student is doing a Final year project relating Modularity design design fr maintenance. So I guess I do give some value to the sustainable design movement.



In the marketing world service substitution above is pretty widespread in Europe. They have car sharing service, handbag sharing, well it's not sharing per say, rather you get to use a lot of expensive high quality handbags while only paying for the fraction of the cost. You get to own those handbags for some time maybe to attend a dinner or some party, but after you're done you'll just returned it for others to use. They also do this with super cars like Lamborghini Porsche, etc.. The burden of ownership is transferred and many more people get to enjoy the luxury of what the best things in life bring.