Sustainability Is Not Sufficient

Sustainable design. Sustainable trend. Sustainable dwelling. We regularly hear these phrases in advertising campaigns and widespread media. However what does sustainability imply and why does pioneer of Person Expertise Design Don Norman suppose that sustainability shouldn’t be our purpose once we design? Watch the video to search out out.

What Are Viable Options to Deliberate Obsolescence?

Deliberate obsolescence is the follow of intentionally shortening the lifetime of a product to pressure folks to purchase replacements. Firms use three strategies to make their merchandise out of date:

• Breakdown: Merchandise that individuals can’t restore simply, or are extraordinarily costly to restore as a result of the components are solely out there in choose locations or are costly turn into out of date by means of breakdown.

• Progress: Merchandise that aren’t designed to be upgraded simply, or new know-how that isn’t backward suitable with older units makes the older units out of date.

• Style: When entrepreneurs pitch a sure look as new or trendy, folks with older (or earlier technology) merchandise really feel they’ve outdated merchandise. Even when these are in good working situation, folks search replacements.

One of many prime examples of deliberate obsolescence are smartphones and laptops that turn into out of date inside a yr or two.

Case Examine: Smartphones

Apple’s iPhones set the pattern for “unibody” circumstances that didn’t have removable batteries. Customers can go to a service heart and have the cellphone batteries changed. However past that, the cellphone can’t be upgraded.

Additional, Apple solely permits sure retailers to do work on their merchandise, and oftentimes voids warranties if anybody else modifies them. This forces the patron to purchase a brand new gadget as a substitute of repairing the unique gadget. 

Versus Apple’s single-body units, assembled desktop PCs permit customers to modify out completely different components of the machine to incrementally improve its efficiency with out changing the complete unit. Some firms have taken steps to make their units as reusable and upgradeable as doable.

Fairphone is only one instance of an organization that appears past promoting a product. There are limitless alternatives for such a mannequin throughout each trade.

Apple has confronted criticisms for its design selections and the e-waste that it encourages. To Apple’s credit score, it has tried to cut back its wasteful practices. For instance, the corporate has a trade-in coverage that lets consumers get a brand new gadget at a reduction. The corporate refurbishes the older gadget and sells it by means of its distribution chain. Apple additionally ensures all its working programs are backward suitable, so that everybody enjoys the most recent OS, even when they’ve an older gadget. Coupled with long-lasting {hardware}, the corporate pitches itself as a planet-friendly group that reduces waste. 

The Take Away

Sustainability means to keep up the present state. Because the world continues to supply waste, landfills and carbon-emissions-saturated air have disturbed the ecosystem of the planet. If we have been to proceed to keep up the present state, the longer term could be bleak. In different phrases, we can’t maintain the unsustainable.

Companies and designers should change the best way we design and our enterprise fashions. We should consider methods to make merchandise repairable and long-lasting. Extra importantly, we should suppose past simply promoting merchandise. We should contemplate each part of the system—the place and the way we get our uncooked supplies, how can we make them as modular as doable, and the way will we carry again older merchandise and disassemble them to place them again into the manufacturing course of?

A programs strategy additionally permits firms to cut back prices and discover a number of income streams (for instance, by means of the sale of spare components).

References and The place to Be taught Extra

Don Norman covers sustainability (and why it isn’t sufficient) in additional element in his ebook Design for a Higher World: Significant, Sustainable, Humanity Centered.

See this essay by Don Norman by which he elaborates his stance on why recycling isn’t the most effective answer for sustainability:
Recycling: A poor answer to the fallacious drawback: An essay in two components 

Self-described “Apple holic” Jonny Evans analyzes Apple’s second-user smartphone enterprise.

It’s not doable to color Apple’s sustainability claims and practices in a single coloration. Here’s a holistic, multi-layered evaluation:
Apple Is not as Inexperienced as It Pretends to Be: Here is Why