Car companies today are doing more than ever to create more energy-efficient cars, cars that get better gas mileage, and cars that rely on emerging technologies like fuel cells, hydrogen, and electric motors. It’s very exciting–and Toyota has taken innovation to a whole new level and decided to make a great effort in reducing CO2 emissions from the actual production of their vehicles.

Toyota has actually developed two new flower species in an effort to reduce CO2 emissions from the manufacturing process of the Toyota Prius at it’s plant in Toyota City, Japan. The flowers, planted on the grounds of the manufacturing plant, are designed to absorb harmful gases and create water vapor in the air, in turn reducing the temperature around the plant, and the need for additional cooling, cutting energy use and CO2 emissions. The plants are derivatives of the Cherry Sage plant (whose leaves have the ability to absorb harmful gases) and the Gardenia (whose leaves create excess water vapor in the air).

These plants, along with many other innovations over the years, have helped Toyota greatly reduce CO2 emissions from the manufacturing process of their vehicles, by up to 55 percent since 1990. Read more here.

Andy
www.orange-element.com

1. Design things to be useful :: simple enough… consider finding the need before finding a solution. Our designs need to first and foremost address functionality.

2. Dematerialization :: Design something smart. He used the example of the iphone; we no longer need to carry a watch, gps, pda, mp3 player, camera, phone, etc. It can all be contained in one small product, increasing usability and convenience for the user and decreasing the number of products that will eventually end up in our landfills.

3. Substitution :: Consider your materials. Does that chair need to be built from fresh chopped wood from the northern Boreal forest or is there an opportunity to utilize recycled or sustainable materials? For print designers there are no excuse not to consider recycled, fsc or sfi certified paper options anymore. Recycled stock costs and quality have improved dramatically over the past few years to make them equally competitive beside a conventional stock.

4. Transmaterialization :: Turn products into services, the hybid taxis being a perfect example for this strategy.

5. Localization :: Reduce transportation, support your local providers and keep your money local. See Andrea’s May local challenge below to get started on this strategy today!

6. Informationalization :: Research is essential to design. A building designed to works in downtown Baltimore may not be appropriate on the flood plains of Africa. Consider the variables that effect design and open you thoughts to the input of outside opinion and research.

7. Design for “intended” reuse :: As artist, we often feel as though we can turn any hunk of trash into a worthy piece of artwork but the average consumer may not have the creativity or interest to go this extra step. Why not design products that are intended to be reused when their original intended use is through. Shedroff used the example of Maille Condiment Jars. When finished with the product you are left with a classy drinking glass.

8. Design for durability :: design a product to be serviceable, repairable and upgradeable. Our designs should also be something that people want to have around. I like the example of OXO. If you look at the products on their site they have their own unique distinctive look but the style is attractive, timeless, and puts the demands of function first. You will even find a section on their site for refills and replacement parts – why replace the entire product if it is only a small piece that is no longer functional.

9. Design for disassembly :: Why is it so difficult to figure out if the water bottle or lunch container you just ate from is recyclable or not? And what is the meaning of the filled in symbol verses the outlined symbol. If a product is intended to be recycled why make it such a mystery. Be intentional with your design and don’t make the user question the capabilities of a product.

10. Redesign the system itself :: Our economic models stink (in Shedroff’s words describing the GDP) We need new ways of thinking because decisions we are making on the old ways are unstable and detrimental.

For more on ways to be a sustainable designer he recommends the following books:
* Design is the Problem by Nathan Shedroff and Hunter Lovins
* Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
* Nature Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins
* Leading Change Toward Sustainability by Bob Doppelt
* The Next Sustainability Wave Bob Willard and Hunter Lovins

—EJ
www.orange-element.com

]]> http://www.orange-blog.com/2009/05/07/compostmodern-4/feed/ 0 http://www.orange-blog.com/2009/04/30/compostmodern-convergence-3/ http://www.orange-blog.com/2009/04/30/compostmodern-convergence-3/#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:18:26 +0000 Andrea Campbell http://www.orange-blog.com/?p=1057

I really can’t say enough about Emily Pilloton. We watched a 30-minute speech given by the 27-year-old last week at AIGA’s Compostmodern gathering. I was blown away. She is clear, driven and above all else, carries a humble disposition about her position in the world. She believes the more the merrier when it comes to finding solutions to make the world a better place. In just one short year she has started Project H, created learning landscapes (shown above–scalable learning system with endless opportunities) and found a solution to redesign the Hippo Roller (plastic canister used in rural settings like African villages for transporting water) allowing 250% more to be shipped in the same container, saving on energy costs, company expenses and distributing to more people at a faster rate. I encourage you to check out her site (nice logo by the way) www.projecthdesign.com. Look out for a book this fall that she is currently working on with Metropolis Books.

ande
www.orange-element.com

Happy Earth Day.

I had the privilege of attending AIGA’S second of four sessions geared toward the 2009 Compostmodern Workshop in SanFran. If last week was about scale, this week was definately about statistics. We watched two videos, one from Michel Gelobeter and the other from Saul Griffith. You might know of Saul through wattzon.com.

Lots of facts: In 1901, 50% of a family’s income was spent on food; today only 9%, but that is because we are now spending 25-30% on daycare and 25% on transportation. The reason–higher use of fossil fuels–so in a way, we are driving to work to pay for daycare to drive to the grocery store–so we are now spending over half of our income on these three things. Speaking of driving, we can actually go from 25 miles per gallon to 85 mpg if we reduce our speed from 85 miles per hour to around 45.

What does all this mean? It means as a society we have to stop spending our money and resources on disposable items. We need to create solutions that last longer and are better suitable for the environment. Designers need to start thinking about the full life cycle of their projects and ask questions up front that target the end use—is it headed to the landfill or the earth or the recycling center? We all need to do our part now to conserve energy and lower CO2 emissions. In other words, SLOW DOWN.

Here are 6 useful examples that inspire action:

Book: Green Graphic Design by Celery and Brian Dougherty
Article: Read this: World Without Oil, Amen
Movie: End of Suburbia–haven’t seen it personally, but it was recommended last week at the event.
URL: TED.com
Magazine: Good Magazine has reduced its print frequency to save material and transportation costs.
Building: The Vancouver Convention Centre: The largest green roof ever for a commercial building with a water-use reduction of 60% to 70%.

ande
www.orange-element.com

Last night I participated in the first of a 4 session meetup through AIGA to discuss the role of the designer in sustainability. The discussion was based around a serious of videos from the 2009 Compostmodern Workshop in San Francisco and the focus of last night’s discussion was scale.

To start off the evening we watched the famous Ray and Charles Eames film,The Powers of Ten (click to watch). If you haven’t seen the short film, it is “a film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding another zero”. The film takes you from the comfortable spot on a picnic blanket in Chicago out in intervals of ten to 100 million light years into the darkness of space and back down to 0.000001 angstroms into the tiny nucleus of the atom. While the film may look like a science video at first, makes you very aware of the important issue of scale. When you look at just the one man and woman on the picnic blanket in the scale of the entire universe they are practically nonexistent in size but in the scale of the planet, the country, the city, and down to the park and blanket they occupy, they are increasingly more significant. The speaker referred the issue of global warming and how it stems around just one small molecule. The one small molecule is less of a concern on its own but when you add one to the masses, in a scale of a planet that is too small to hold them, then we face the problem of global warming.

With this consideration of scale, the speaker discussed the need to look beyond what we already know. He quoted Eames:

“In order to be truly secure, we need to be truly secure in change”

One example that was mentioned in the second video, by Allan Chochinov, was of Chris Jordan, who captures the reality and scale of American mass consumption in his photography. Jordan describes the scale of our consumption as invisible because it is divided out across tens of thousands of manufacturing processes and waste streams. To us, we only know the handful of phones that we go through individually , but beyond what we know are millions of other cell phone users who go through an equal or greater number of phones. I found the video above on youtube which talks about several of Jorden’s photographs. One photo in particular has been digitally stitched to show the number of phones that are “retired” in one day; all 426,000 of them!!!

“Designers think they are in the artifact business,
but they are in the consequence business” —Philip Johnson

Be sure to check back next friday with highlights from our next Compostmodern Convergence meet up. Until then, happy Friday and enjoy your holiday weekend!

—EJ
www.orange-element.com
@orange_element

We have been fortunate enough recently to start working with the great folks over there, and just finished our first project.  We’re proud of the way it turned out and wanted to show it off.  It’s an oversized postcard that is being used in conjunction with a highly targeted mailing list of folks who embrace the organic/sustainable movement.

(Click for full size image)

The best part is, they’re putting one within 1 mile of Orange Element in Baltimore’s Harbor East development! It’s just one of the 24 planned new openings Elevation Burger already has in the works. We’ll be working with them to further develop their brand identity and support them as they shape their restaurants and support their franchisees.

Visit their Website at elevationburger.com to find out more about them.  And if you’re real nice to me, maybe I’ll put in a good word with the owners and get you some free fries too.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

Aren’t they beautiful?

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-blog.com

Overall, Americans drove 53.2 billion fewer miles November through June than they did over the same eight-month period a year earlier, according to the highway agency’s latest monthly report on driving. That’s a larger decline than the 49.3 billion fewer miles driven by Americans over the entire decade of the 1970s, a period marked by oil embargoes and gas lines, the agency said.

Americans drove 12.2 billion fewer miles this June than in last June.
It’s a start! Read the rest here.

I think I’ll walk to the grocery store tonight. And use my reusable bags (which are worth every penny…you should check them out!).

Have you replaced any of your driving-errands with walking-errands lately?

Sarah Rosenthal
Orange-Element.com

Thanks, Brandflakes.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

TerraCycle Brigades is a movement where TerraCycle brings the masses together to collect specific waste products such as corks, empty drink pouches and plastic bottles. But they don’t stop there. They sweeten the pot by giving cash back for each specific item collected. This refund is funded in part by generous corporate sponsors like Nabisco and Stonyfield Farms.

TerraCycle in turn creates products that we all need out of these items that used to be considered garbage. They call it upcycling. I think it’s a brilliant idea and I really think it’s going to go somewhere. Consider the potential when large organizations like school systems, corporations, even cities and states get behind this effort…

Here is a video with TerraCycle’s own Tom Szaky explaining the magnitude of the Bottle Brigade program that they’ve been working on:

Great find, EJ. Thanks for the tip!

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com