Sustainable Design: If Not Now. . ?

1.
Sustainability: The Designer
For more than 20 years, Dan Sturges has been tirelessly working to provide what he calls “transportation options,” which aren’t all based on small, frugal vehicle designs, although it should be noted that in 1993 Sturges established a company, trans2, to produce the neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV) that he designed. Some years later, and many changes in between, that company is the Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) subsidiary of Chrysler Group. Whereas the company Sturges started had a rather ignominious fate characteristic of startups, GEM has sold more than 40,000 NEVs in the 10 years Chrysler has owned it.

Presently, Sturges is the president and founder of Intrago Corp. (intrago.com), a company that reflects his interests in new business models, new technology, and new uses of digital technology for purposes of improving local mobility. Trained as a designer at Art Center College of Design (artcenter.edu), Sturges has been a proselyte for design alternatives, focusing mainly on the more efficient means to go from point A to point B.

When asked about sustainable design, Sturges describes it, “It is the design of products done in such a way that enables us to live better and so as not to be a detriment to our ability to survive. It could be the design of a coffee cup that doesn’t add to the landfill. It is a vehicle that gets 300 miles per gallon.”

From a more tactical standpoint, he explains, “The thing about sustainable design is that oftentimes it is an efficient design. It uses materials wisely or it eliminates processes like painting that might not be sustainable or environmentally beneficial. A majority of times it is a very efficient design that offers economic savings to the manufacturer, and ultimately to the consumer.”

It gets down to the point of design where considerations are paid not only to the “environment,” but to overall efficiency, and fitness for use. But sometimes this subverts expectations because the sustainably designed product is not what is expected, not the norm. Sturges cites an example from another area to make his point. It’s the Herman Miller Aeron chair (which, incidentally, has Silver rating in the McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) “Cradle to Cradle” certification (c2c.mbdc.com) and is 94% recyclable, so it is arguably “sustainable.”) Sturges says that back in the early ‘00s, when the Tech Bust occurred, there was an abundance of Aeron chairs donated to the Salvation Army in the greater Silicon Valley area. “A lot of customers didn’t want them because they didn’t think they were finished chairs because they didn’t have conventional upholstery.” Similarly, products that are designed with sustainability in mind may not be ordinary. “We have to educate people a lot about why these products may look different and what their value is.” Sturges says that the “very design-astute consumer” will understand, but acknowledges that for the run of the mill shopper, “things can be a little unsettling.” That shiny, glossy surface may not be there. He adds, “I don’t think our retail environments are adequate to explain the sustainable benefits.”

“Sustainable design” presumes that there is the function of the designer behind it. But is that the appropriate place for the responsibility? Shouldn’t there be others—engineers, marketing people, executives, someone else—responsible? Sturges thinks that the designer, while not necessarily having to bear all of the burden, is pivotal. “The designer is the person who can understand how something can be made, understands the needs of the company from a business perspective, understands the needs and desires of the consumer, and is the one who can visualize and can create a solution that satisfies everyone. The buck stops with them to some extent. If anyone can figure out how to make a sustainable product that works for all the stakeholders, it’s the designer.”

2.
Sustainability: The Organization
Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, is many things. Among them is a man who is showing leadership in the sustainable design movement. Schwarzenegger has been championing a Green Chemistry Initiative in California, and has signed several laws since 2005 related to the disclosure of chemicals used in products. Most recently, in 2008 he signed into law California Assembly Bill 1879 (Feuer) and Senate Bill 509 (Simitian), which put into effect the requirement that manufacturers (1) identify harmful chemicals in the products they sell in California and (2) evaluate safer alternatives. It also gives authority to California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control to take action against companies that are not in compliance with the law, and to even ban the sale of products in California that may have deleterious effects on humans or the environment.

Given that the population of California is approximately 37-million and that the economy of the state is the eighth largest in the world, what goes on in California has repercussions far beyond its borders.

“Cradle to Cradle Design” is a methodology that was developed by Dr. Michael Braungart, a chemist, and William McDonough, an architect; the two established McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) in 1995. One aspect of what MBDC does is to help companies certify that their products meet the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) protocol.

One primary difference between C2C and other methodologies is that it is not a simple “This is made of green materials” or “We used less material to make this one than the previous model,” which could be termed “eco-efficiency” but it is a positive approach from the standpoint of products actually being beneficial in some way, which is “eco-effectiveness.” C2C Design looks at sustainability from the lenses of both technical and biological metabolisms. And this involves the entire process, from start to finish—although that’s not precisely right, because there is no “finish” as is commonly thought, which is why they repeat the term “cradle.” So a product is made of materials that are not only safe, but which could be recycled into the ground and thereby provide biological nutrients, or disassembled and reused and thereby provide technical nutrients.

Companies seeking to get their products C2C certified undergo assessments that look at all aspects of product development and production, and there are criteria categories that form the basis of assessment: Material Health, Material Reutilization, Renewable Energy Use, Water Stewardship, and Social Responsibility. There are four certification levels, from Basic to Platinum. Just to provide a sense of the level of engagement required, here is a general description of the requirements for Basic:

• All chemical in product identified down to 100 ppm level
• No PVC, chloroprene, or related chemical at any concentration
• All materials and chemicals assessed for toxicity to human and environmental health
• Strategy developed to optimize all remaining problematic chemicals
• All materials defined as technical nutrients to be recycled or biological nutrients to be composted

Which is to say that this is a serious certification process.

And which brings us back to California.

On May 20, 2010, in San Francisco, the Green Products Innovation Institute (GPII; gpinnovation.org), a nonprofit, was officially launched. GPII has been provided with the C2C certification mark and the C2C protocols by MBDC. Explains Beth Rattner, executive director of GPII, the organization is committed to helping companies receive C2C certification, working with them and their supply chain. “This is not just about ‘going green’ per se. It is about creating beneficial products, products that do more for the environment and human health than just achieving a net zero.”

Rattner explains that in the product realm there has not been something like the LEED certification (usgbc.org/leed) in the building arena. C2C may become that. So they will also be working to train a number of independent consultants that can help companies work toward certification.

While achieving C2C is a “good” thing vis-à-vis the environment, there are other issues, like the ability to be certain that products will be salable in the state of California. Rattner points out that one issue that manufacturers may face is knowing what their sub-suppliers are doing when it comes to chemical use. The C2C protocol will help uncover any issues. What’s more, she points out that if there is a chemical of concern that is identified by a number of companies, the demand for an alternative can be aggregated, thereby providing supplier companies with more incentive to develop the alternative. “One good thing about California: What we do here can be taken to scale rapidly.”

3.
Sustainability: The Pioneer
“Do you want to talk to someone who is really into this and has been for a long time? You’ve got to talk to Steve McDonald. He was the guy who got Nike started on it. I’m wearing a pair of his shoes right now,” Dan Sturges says to me of his former Art Center classmate.

Following Art Center, McDonald went to work at frog design, where he worked on early Apple products. Becoming bored with designing “plastic boxes,” he did some freelance work for companies including Nike. It was then a job as creative director at the accessories division of clothing company Esprit. Then in ’89 it was to Nike as an employee, creative director of the ACG group that he helped establish. Along the way he designed shoes for athletes including Charles Barkley and David Robinson. And there were Air Mowabb, Air Revaderchi, Air Moc, and more. McDonald moved on again, transplanting from Portland, Oregon, to Park City, Utah, where he established Faceplant (web.mac.com/stevemcdonald1/Face-plant.com/Youre_here%21_Welcome.html), where he does design for a number of companies. And since 2001 he has held the lead innovator role in the Nike Innovation Kitchen, the place where advanced ideas are cooked up.

McDonald is not comfortable using the word “sustainability.” He suggests that the only thing that would be truly sustainable would be if you grew something in your backyard and then ate it. Which is not to say that he doesn’t have the sort of drive and sensibility that put him in what most of us would describe as the center of sustainability activities.

With regard to Nike, it goes back to the 1992-’93 time frame. “Back then,” McDonald recalls, “I put myself in the learning mode. I went over to the factories. I went through every aspect of the manufacturing process. I was blown away.”

And not in a good way. He looked at the entire cycle of how leather comes to be, from the cow to the chromium tanning—and at what was happening to the used heavy metal. He looked at the glues that were being used, which were solvent-based and often toxic. He discovered that “once you glue something together with one of these glues, it’s pretty much unrecyclable because your attaching two unlike materials through a chemical process.” He looked at the various materials being used for the shoes (“vinyl is really, really nasty”). He looked at the number of people involved in making a shoe—he thought that there might be about 20. There was an order of magnitude more.

So he came back to Beaverton and started making presentations to executives about his ideas for shoes that would be more environmental than was the state of the shoe business at that time. And he was met with a number of eye rolls.

Yet today he says, “Everything I proposed back in ’92 and ’93 has been implemented in almost all the shoes. To Nike’s credit, they have really stepped it up and they are way beyond everybody else.”

Whereas he had originally proposed replacing solvent-based glues with water-based glues and was met with less than acceptance back then, now water-based adhesives are the norm. The company is actively reducing the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in all of its footwear. “Nike has really rigid standards now,” McDonald says. “There are probably some 50 people in Beaverton who are making sure that every material they used is certified.”

And he makes a point that is sometimes lost sight of when people think about “corporations” and “environment,” with the former not being particularly good as regards the latter. “A lot of people come down on big companies like Nike. But small companies can’t afford to do things the right way. So they may be ten times dirtier.” Whereas Nike can afford to implement a comprehensive strategy for producing sustainable products, small companies aren’t in the same position to do so. That said, McDonald doesn’t think that the Nike way is the norm among corporations, where it may be more “cost-effective” to make a small adjustment and then market the heck out of it than to make the investment of retooling to produce cleaner products.

So what does McDonald use rather than “sustainable”? “Considered.” (Yes, now there is a whole line of “Nike Considered” footwear and apparel.) McDonald explains that every product is different. “If I want to design a shoe that an athlete can wear to win a gold medal, that is the number-one consideration. The greenness of the shoe is not that big of a concern. But if I design a shoe that I know is going to sell two million pair, that is a big concern.” So it is all about considerations. And McDonald says that while there are many designers who think they are designing in a “considered way,” most of the time they have a narrow focus on considerations. They don’t look at the big picture. There are hundreds of them. It is overwhelming, but you have to knock them off one at a time.”

He adds: “That’s the difference between a fair designer and a great designer. A great designer has an innate sense of the important considerations.”

McDonald acknowledges that if he is designing the shoe that may go on to sell two million pair, there are other factors that he has to balance beyond just having as little impact on the environment as he can. “If I made that my only priority, it might be that wouldn’t consider the cultural dynamic, so they would be goofy-looking.” And they wouldn’t sell in such volume. While he admits that the juggling act can be tricky—taking into account everything from performance (he is, after all, designing athletic shoes) to manufacturing processes—he says, “I think that’s super-fun.”

McDonald is working on a shoe for the 2012 London Olympics. “I hope that it will have zero waste in manufacturing,” says the man who doesn’t like to talk about sustainability.