The Power of Sustainable Design
Jonathon Porritt
Wednesday 26 March 2008, The Watershed
Speaking in front of a full house, Jonathon Porritt, founder Director of Forum for the Future and Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, put forward provocative and comprehensive thoughts on the role for designers in creating a more sustainable world. The conclusion of the evening was that design is very powerful and does have a crucial role, but his talk was structured around five potential barriers to why the design community does not appear to be as engaged in sustainability as it could be.
1. Ignorance: Are designers not engaged because they are unaware of the issues? This was thought to be highly unlikely given the intellectual standing of the design profession.
2. Indifference: Does the design community just not care about the issues? This also was thought highly unlikely due to the numerous ways in which designers are known for tackling various social and cultural dilemmas.
3. Impotence: Do designers suffer from a sense that any change they make is just too small within the global picture? On the one hand this point was raised as something that many individuals suffer from. The fact that all actions, however small, do add up to become a bigger shift has to be kept in mind to overcome this. But the issue of 'CDS' or Client Dependency Syndrome was also raised. This touched on the situation where designers – and many other professions – claim that they are powerless to make changes unless the client requests them. Jonathon challenged this position and stated that ultimately this is just an excuse. He urged designers to help their clients understand the issues and see the possibilities. Although he recognised this is not necessarily an easy thing to do and often requires subtlety, nevertheless the question he put to everyone was "what have you done to help change your clients?". In response to a question on this point later in the evening, Jonathon suggested that presenting research on upcoming market and regulatory pressures is one way to approach discussions with clients.
4. Image: Is sustainability too dull for designers? Design is associated with being 'cool' and cutting edge whereas sustainability has come from associations of muesli munching and bearded geeks. This has been a barrier to attracting designers to the issues, but the stereotypes are changing.
5. Inadequacy: Is the role for design only a small one? Creating a more sustainable world means tackling huge issues of how the global economy is fuelled and how our consumer lifestyles are powerfully engineered toward material consumption. Jonathon described the idea of the 'hedonistic treadmill' where people are actively discouraged from thinking that they might have 'enough'. Given the scale and complexity of these debates, surely design only has a minor part to play compared to other global institutions? On the contrary, the need to make people feel passionate and excited about change is something that governments and other bodies are unable to do. This is where designers have a massive contribution to make in persuading people to live differently.
