Our lives have changed. After researching for three weeks, we are more conscious than ever about how to change our lives, society and the rest of the world to be successful and sustainable. This is the most important thing that I learned because I know that with just a simple look into the aspects of sustainability, my eyes have opened to a whole new side of one of the biggest industries in the world. I have loved the blog discussion this week because a lot of what we have talked about is what we have noticed in our own lives. Dr. Armstrong, Nicole and I have talked about how we’re constantly wondering if the company is sustainable and we now lean towards sustainable products. Natalie pointed out that its hard to shop at places like Forever 21 now because of the lack of sustainability. Forever 21 overwhelmed me before I was conscious of sustainability. Thinking of the clothes strewn all over that store, the MASS amount of clothing in every store makes me cringe! It’s disgusting, none of its durable and I’ve realized that I would rather pay $60 for a top at J. Crew, who has sustainability practices in place, that will last me years instead of a few tops at Forever 21 that will last me maybe a few months.
This learning is useful and relevant because it means, we have the ability to catch people’s attention and make a change for the better. There are so many solutions out there right now that I’m excited to see put into place. I know that within the next few years, what I notice now, other people will be more conscious of. Carly’s blog made me question whether or not I really NEED to buy items. Nicole and I talked about this as well. I am amazed at how this is leaked into other parts of my life. Stillwater is starting a recycling program and although it hasn’t started yet, it almost hurts to throw away a plastic milk jug in the trash! I’m more conscious of using natural light and turning off lights in my house if we’re not in the room. I love white noise and am famous for bringing my box fan with me to sleepovers because I can’t sleep without it. Normally, I leave it on during the day but now I ask myself what’s the point? I’m not there and all its doing is wasting energy.
This information that we have learned this week as well as over the past three weeks has also taught me how to be a smart consumer. I know now that when a label says natural, it may be a marketing ploy instead of truly all natural. I’ve learned to look for labeling on products. My eyes catch onto brands that I’ve seen over and over again throughout research. I will begin buying these products simply because I know their eco-friendly. Every day I find myself telling my friends an interesting fact about some sustainable effort or product. It’s beginning to catch their attention and they’re actually interested in what I’m telling them.
As always, I’m interested in how to get awareness out. Maybe it’s a little part of me being interested in advertising but once the product is on the shelves we don’t have control. I want to know how to make it easy for the customer. I want to not only learn more about what companies can do to solve their sustainability issues but I want to see it in action. I want to see their landscaped rooftops designed to reduce energy consumption. I want to see studies done on the use of labels on clothing. I want to see what the average consumer wants. I love the design industry and I’m interested in anything that goes on in our everyday design world. Sustainability is a huge and growing trend. I’m thankful for that experience that blogging has provided so I know what to do when I get into the workforce. I believe this opportunity has also enabled us to be prepared in interviews. They always say you have to have something that sets you apart from the rest. With the amount of research that this class requires, I believe we are prepared to make the change.
Nike. The Swoosh. A powerhouse company known around the world and in my opinion, at the top of the list in terms of sustainability. The Nike name has appeared over and over again in my research on sustainability and that’s why within this blog you will see a consistent reference to the company. Over the past couple of weeks we have studied what sustainability is, what the industry has been doing about it and how we need to fix it and now we get to the fun stuff! Sustainability reaches out into every corner of business and it affects the entire process - that means entire companies have to come together to make it work. In The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability we were given the opportunity to take a look at two sectors: economic and cultural sustainability. There are three things from these sections that I believe the workforce should do to create a top-notch, sustainable work environment. These are: First, focus on what The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability coins “The Good Corporation”, second, engage the User and finally have overall have happy people.
“The Good Corporation”, coined in the economic section of The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability, is built on values like philanthropy, volunteerism, partnerships for sustainability and competitive advantage. According to the 2012 Global 100 List, Novo Nordisk is the number one sustainable company in the nation. The video above shows how they incorporate community, philanthropy and volunteerism. Companies like Patagonia encourage their employees to go out, while getting paid, and volunteer. How great is that? I think this is so important because if you think about it, where do you get your ideas? By sitting in the office? I think not. You get them when you’re out living. A lot of companies have begun encouraging volunteerism. Kimberly-Clark has taken a huge step towards sustainability by partnering up with United Way. They are one of 120 companies that donate time and money to be apart of United Way’s National Corporate Leadership program. Kimberly-Clark matches employee’s gifts dollar for dollar, each month they host a fundraiser event like bike races and bake sales to raise money for the United Way, raising over $400,000. Kimberly-Clark along with Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Coca Cola Company, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Volvo Group, Polaroid and many others have joined up in partnership with WWF to make a difference on a global level. Helping in areas like water conservation or saving the polar bears, these companies are active in making the world a better place. Polo Ralph Lauren has a Pink Pony Campaign. Ten percent of the proceeds from this campaign go to the Pink Pony Fund, which supports breast cancer awareness and education. The last part of the idea of “The Good Corporation” is that of competitive advantage. Competitive advantage has traditionally been defined as the attributes and resources of an organization that allow it to outperform others in the same industry or product market according to Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Towards a Dynamic Resource-Based Strategy. The article also says that to have sustainability within competitive advantage a company must embrace change, adapt to altered ways and new demands and introducing new resources while still preserving the past. According to Why Nike Kicks Butt In Sustainability, one of the contributions to Nike’s success is that it’s grounded in continual innovation. One thing that has been consistent in our blogging is the fact that we as designers need to go back to the beginning and start changing processes there. Nike designers make smart, sustainable choices at the beginning of the design process. I think the part about preserving the past is one of the most important parts of the competitive advantage concept. I believe that a business is created for a reason and throughout all these necessary changes businesses have to make, it should be their number one priority to maintain the values they started with and stay true to who they are as a company.
The second part of what I believe the workforce needs to have to is to what The Designers Atlas of Sustainability calls “Engaging the User”. In the culture section, engagement means involving real connections through doing, being, and interacting. They say success should be measured not by sales but by the engagement of the user. As talked about through our blogs, communication is KEY to awareness. According to Why Nike Kicks Butt in Sustainability, Nike engages the user and sustainability simply because of their product and target market. Since their products are geared towards athletes who like to spend time outdoors, Nike’s target market may be more likely to be aware of issues relating to the environmental degradation. The article Top 10 Trends in Sustainable Business says that businesses should communicate their sustainability commitments to their stakeholders and customers. Traditionally being through brochures and websites, companies are now looking to two-way conversations to involve customers in sustainable strategies between the company and its consumers. The article also says that companies need to understand the “story” of the product. That includes knowing how it is used by consumers and what they do with the product when its finished. Knowing the end-life of a product involves being in active communication with your customers.
The last of the trends in the Top 10 Trends In Sustainable Business is having fun in the journey of sustainability. It says that companies need to be having fun, being innovative, creative and experimental. They give the example of Amazon’s Frustration Free Packaging, which according to worldchanging.com is working to eliminate acrylic plastic cases by packaging products in boxes that can use a mailing label directly. Not only does this concept reduce packaging waste but it also lowers handling and packaging costs. The video below shows what this packaging entails.
Companies like Patagonia and Nike encourage employees to go on a run if they feel the urge to get out of the office. There are so many times when I’m at work where I’m just about to fall asleep. If I were given the ok to go on a run I definitely would!! This also shows that they care about their employees and promote a healthy work environment. In the fashion world, I am sure you have heard of Lilly Pulitzer. Well Lilly teams up with Nabisco’s Barnum and Baileys Animal Crackers and WWF every year to have Lilly packaging on the crackers. Their efforts go to support tiger conversation. The WWF website mentioned that Nabisco even saw a “healthy lift in sales” with this promotion. My mom sent me a care package with these animal crackers and I loved them. This is just on example of how to have fun but at the same time bringing out awareness of becoming a sustainable community and nation. According to Why Nike Kicks Butt In Sustainability Nike, has a high level of communication and interaction throughout their entire business that leads to strong personal relationships. With the experience I have had so far, the jobs that I have had the most fun at, are the jobs that I have become friends with my coworkers. They choose their employees to fit their innovative, competitive and fast-moving company. In order to have a fun atmosphere, the employees have the values of the company in mind. Because of this the employees have invested personal interest and responsibility in the company.
These three tasks aren’t a burden on the company. Becoming “The Good Corporation”, engaging the user, and having fun are all objectives that will keep the employee and the corporation entertained and in tune with their work. I don’t even want to call it work because if you’re having fun with it, its’ not raelly work. I’m only excited for the endless opportunities and innovations to come out of entertaining sustainability efforts. The trend is growing and we as students are lucky to be coming into a new generation of sustainable fashion.
I think the most important thing that I have learned this week is the biggest aspect of C2C, waste=food and up cycling. These were topics discussed in everyone’s blogs. Not only did I dig into research myself on the technical vs. biological nutrients and different ways to up cycle but everyone else dug up different information. That is encouraging to know that we can all research the same thing but come up with different ideas and examples. I’ve even found that the brands we’ve talked about constantly or brands that I know are C2C certified stick out to me now. The other day in the shower I grabbed my shampoo and noticed the P&G sticker. Funny how you don’t normally think about things and then once you learn about them they start to appear everywhere!
One of the things that I love about these two solutions is that they involve the consumers. This is also why its useful and relevant to me because I not only have the opportunity to be the designer but I am just as much of a consumer than the average person. These lessons about how to recycle my electronics and recycle materials that most deem as “useless”, will only teach me how to do my consumer responsibility to being eco-friendly. I now have ideas that I wouldn’t have before, like the idea to potentially contact Ford and have a “Jean Drive” that stemmed from our conversation on Rachel’s blog.
Not only does it help me be responsible but I can also teach it to my peers. I even find myself in normal conversation telling people about what I’ve learned. The other night at dinner, my friends were talking about how there are so many foods that have chemicals in them that US doesn’t restrict but other countries do. If I knew they would be interested I would have gone off in detail about how the same thing happens in textiles. However, I don’t know if they would’ve been that interested in all my fun facts.
I said this last time but the thing that fascinates me is how companies are acting on sustainability. I could spend a lot of time just watching the youtube videos that companies are using to promote their sustainable efforts. I think advertisement is going to be a major channel for getting awareness out. I also love to learn about how the consumer can get involved. I think it takes everyone to make a difference.
Doesn’t this video make you want to be a kid again?! It was too cute and fun not to put in here, but it does make some valid points.
1) What was their go-to size for a car? Small!! Size is on of the biggest problems of our industry.The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability says there are three ways we as humans disrupt nature’s material cycle: The scale on which we use and discard material, the speed at which we use those materials, and the material we take from the lithosphere and give to other spheres.
2) Its an advertisement from a company who is very vocal about their sustainability efforts.
3) These little kids are the ones who we’re going to leave our own footprint to; what we do affects them.
4) They had lots of fun throughout the whole process.
5) These little kids are also us. We’re the “now” generation, the baby designers, the interns and most importantly, the fresh ideas. We’ve been taught about these issues and it is our chance to turn our field around.
William McDonough and Michael Braungart have created Cradle to Cradle, or C2C. The quote on the front page of the article is “Remaking the Way We Make Things”. This is only the first of many different ways to make our mark. As mentioned by Dr. Armstrong in her lecture, C2C has three main tenets: Use current solar income, celebrate diversity and waste equals food. Let’s take a look into what these actually mean and what we can do about!
I was super overwhelmed with all of these concepts, especially the first one. Use current solar income? What does that even mean? So I dug a little deeper and lo and behold Cradle To Cradle’s Certificate of Compliance popped up on the McDonough Braungart Design Company’s website. Current solar income basically means using renewable energy. Their ultimate goal for current solar income is to have all of the energy inputs come from geothermal, wind, biomass, hydro and photovoltaic energy. However, in order to be a C2C certified product, only 50% of the manufacturing process must be renewable energy, this doesn’t include transportation. Cotton has recently been under fire because the amount of energy it takes to produce. I found an article in Applied Solar Energy pointing out a solution to the manufacturing process of cotton, one of the biggest textiles of our industry. Normally, the drying process of cotton includes air heated by burning liquid fuels.The solution? Specialized ceramics that decrease the duration of drying, improves efficiency and high-quality target output. Data shows that this method is 9.4 times more energy efficient than the former method and consumes more than 2.5 times less energy. Textile World has an article that mentions several companies that are taking steps toward renewable energy. Interface, a carpet manufacturer, has seven plants that use 100-percent renewable electricity.Approximately 28 % of Interface’s total energy needs are sourced from solar, hydroelectric, landfill gas and geothermal energy. Hydropower provides 91% of the energy used for the fabric producer The Victor Group.Shaw Industries has converted 18,000 plus tons of post-industrial carpet waste and wood floor to steam energy at its Dalton, Georgia plant and the list goes on.This is so encouraging because it means companies are waking up to current environmental issues!
The second tenet of C2C, is celebrate diversity. This sector focuses on local resources and design. In our reading, Cradle to Cradle Waste Equals Food, they tell the story of how Chicago was designed. Originally, the cities that surrounded Chicago were created to provide for the city. They were “bound to the city and fueled by its needs”. How convenient is that? One of the biggest problems in our industry is the transportation of goods. A short drive to small towns just beyond the big city limits immensely cuts down on energy that would be wasted shipping long distances! It also keeps all of the rural economies afloat. McDonough’s website also says that we should celebrate nature’s diversity. This means creating designs that fit the local systems relying on local energy and material sources. He provides the example of a Gap office in San Bruno, California. The roof is covered in soil, flowers and grasses that match the local terrain. This roof also “absorbs storm water and provides thermal insulation”. The floor is raised to allow breezes to flow through while the concrete below remains cool and provides a cooling effect throughout the day. His solution coincides with LEED guidelines created to solve the heat island effect on roofing. According to the EPA website, heat islands demand more energy, increase the cost of air conditioning, create more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and can even spur on heat-related illness. By designing with the environment around you, you can save costs, reduce pollution and may even become healthier!
The video above is just a glimpse into the third tenet: waste equals food.The focus of this proposition entails many details but we will specifically focus on the idea of biological and technical metabolisms and then up-cycling. According to our reading article, Cradle to Cradle Food Equals Waste biological metabolisms are ones that are useful to the earth. Technical metabolisms are items like metal that contribute to the “technosphere”. The problem with technical metabolisms right now is that they cannot be recycled back into earth. A C2C solution is to design products from the beginning to be recyclable as technical “nutrients”. The article says that too often packaging materials are deliberately designed to not break down under natural conditions. This is creating huge problems in landfills. When these technical items were scarce like during the Great Depression, people would save and reuse jugs, aluminum foil, rubber bands and more. To this day, my Nana still reuses foil and ziploc bags - items that I take for granted and tend to just throw away even if they barely had been used! This saving up of technical resources stopped when the technology came about to create cheaper materials. It became easier to just create the product than create a place to collect and clean these items for use. What causes the biggest problem is when these two metabolisms are combined to make one product. It makes it hard for the metabolisms to break down into its natural components. The article provides the example of a shoe. Shoes used to be tanned with vegetable chemicals that were biodegradable. Unfortunately, this took a long time and chromium tanning was its replacement. However, vegetable chemicals may be making a comeback. In a YouTube video I found called Fab Flash, the host was telling about top designers who were practicing sustainable practices. The shoe designer, Manolo Blahnik has created sandals and shoes that use vegetable-dyed leathers that also have natural textured soles. The next topic and my favorite is up-cycling. According to The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability up cycling is when material is remade into a high-quality material.
An article from PR Newswire tells all about the company Jackpot. Jackpot uses recycled plastic bottles to create dresses. One dress equals nine and a half recycled plastic bottles. The dress to the left is made with two types of polyester one of them being from recycled plastic bottles and the other a pre-consumer recycled polyester-production bi-product. Both of these polyesters spare the environment and are considered alternatives to cotton and linen. Jackpot also creates a new donation shirt every season – for every shirt they sell during the season, five euros or six dollars and thirty-two cents will be given to poor children in Bangladesh. Another way to up-cycle can be found in your own backyard and is the reason for posting the video you just watched. Taking used scraps of materials and turning it into an entirely new piece. This weekend in Perkins, Oklahoma, I found an antique store called Rusty Barrel Vintage Furnishings. They open only two weekends a year and this store is an absolute treasure - smack in the middle of Oklahoma and luckily close enough to me to dig through! The owner turns dressers into benches, barn doors into coffee tables, whiskey barrels into sinks, skis into chairs and much more. Among all of his creations are random materials that allow you to be creative. I bought an old wooden cable spool and turned it into a side table, shown above. These products tell stories and allow you to share your own design inexpensively, all while being environmentally friendly!
Overall, as designers we need to go back to the basics. We should come up with solutions to create a better process. Our products should be designed to be recyclable. The Food to Waste article gives an example of parts of a chair. After its useful life, consumers can easily tear off the fabric and throw it into the compost. That’s how all of our products should be. This is our field so we should be making it easy for the consumer. An article from The Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management has data that proves consumers who aren’t interested in sustainability won’t look into it and that people buy based on look and not durability or comfort.However, results did show that 81% were interested in purchasing sustainable clothing in the future because they want to be eco-friendly consumers. I think that’s a number we can work with!
