Sustainable Design

Let’s clear the air (so to speak) right away. This is not a book about doom and gloom. We won’t spend a lot of time talking about environmental crises. Many others have taken care of that, and whether or not you believe that climate change is the upcoming apocalypse—it’s actually not the only environmental concern we face—we don’t need to dwell on it. The rationales for ecodesign reach far beyond the singular goal of mitigating climate change to include setting the stage for the future—the sustaining—of our species and aspiring still further to a positive outcome: improving the quality of our lives. Too often environmentalists take the view that we have been bad and must amend our ways, that sacrifice is the necessary path, that we have been irresponsible and we have to give up modern comforts to become more responsible. That approach is not going to work. Most of us have grown used to our ways, and it would be impossible to turn back the clock to how we lived before the Industrial Revolution. Doom-and-gloomists (who are more likely to call themselves realists) would say we have no choice: the dual problems of consumption and population cannot be overcome any other way. But sacrifice does not represent a desirable path or one that most of us would undertake voluntarily. Furthermore, getting rid of technology and modern comforts will not solve our problems. Take cars, for example. The back-to-our-roots approach, which some people consider environmentalism to be, would have us trade in cars for horses. But I doubt we’d like manure-filled streets any more than we like greenhouse gases and traffic jams. The same is true for other areas of technology: reverting from electric or gas furnaces to wood-burning fireplaces on a widespread level is worse environmentally. We don’t need to go backward. There are plenty of design paths, some shovel-ready and others on the near horizon, that will allow us to live comfortably (maybe even more so) within the means of our incredible planet. This isn’t the same as saying that we don’t need to change or rethink our lifestyles. We certainly do, and that, many argue, will lead to improvements in our lives.

source :

http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/34378/1/114.pdf