Sustainable design in industrial design

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The green design mentioned above is mainly aimed at the design of material products, and the so-called "3R" goal is also mainly on the technical level. To systematically solve the environmental problems faced by human beings, we must also study from a broader and more systematic concept, and the concept of sustainable design came into being. Sustainable design is formed on the basis of sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development was first proposed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (UCN) in 1980. 

The latter committee, composed of officials and scientists from many countries, conducted a five-year (1983-1987) research on global development and environmental issues, In 1987, he published the first international declaration known as the sustainable development of mankind - Our Common Future. The report described sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of contemporary people without harming the needs of future generations". The research report considered the two closely related issues of environment and development as a whole. The sustainable development of human society can only be based on the sustainable and stable supporting capacity of ecological environment and natural resources, and environmental problems can only be solved in the process of sustainable development. Therefore, only by correctly handling the relationship between immediate interests and long-term interests, local interests and overall interests, and mastering the relationship between economic development and environmental protection, can this major problem involving the national economy and the people's livelihood and long-term social development be satisfactorily solved.

The difference between "development" and "growth" is that "growth" refers to the expansion of the scale of social activities, while "development" refers to the mutual connection and interaction of various components of the whole society, as well as the improvement of the resulting activity capacity. Different from "growth", the fundamental driving force of development lies in the "constant pursuit of a higher degree of harmony", and the essence of development can be understood as "a higher degree of harmony", while the essence of the evolution of human civilization is that human beings constantly seek the balance between "human needs" and "satisfaction of needs". 

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Therefore, the "harmony" of promoting "development" is the harmony between "human needs" and "satisfaction of needs", and is also the essence of social progress.

Sustainable development has been widely recognized, making designers actively seek new design concepts and models to adapt to sustainable development. The design concept in line with sustainable development is to design products, services or systems that meet the needs of the contemporary and ensure the sustainable development of future generations on the premise of harmonious coexistence between people and the natural environment. In the existing research, the design mainly involves the establishment of a lasting lifestyle, the establishment of sustainable communities, the development of sustainable energy and engineering technology.

Professor Ezio manzini of the Institute of Design of Milan University of Technology defines sustainable design as "sustainable design is a strategic design activity to document and develop sustainable solutions... For the entire production and consumption cycle, systematic product and service integration and planning are used to replace material products with utility and services." Professor Manzini's definition of sustainable design is idealistic, with a bias towards non materialistic design. Non materialistic design is based on the premise that the information society is a society providing services and non-material products. It uses the concept of "non-material" to describe the general trend of future design development, that is, from material design to non-material design, from product design to service design, from product possession to shared services. Non materialism does not stick to specific technologies and materials, but re plans human life and consumption patterns, understands products and services at a higher level, breaks through the role of traditional design, studies the relationship between "people and non objects", and strives to ensure the quality of life and achieve sustainable development with less resource consumption and material output. Of course, human society and even the natural environment are built on the basis of material. Human life activities, survival and development cannot be separated from the material essence. The carrier of sustainable development is also material, and sustainable design cannot be completely separated from its material essence.

In short, sustainable design is a strategic design activity to document and develop sustainable solutions. It takes balanced consideration of economic, environmental, moral and social issues, guides and meets consumer needs with rethinking design, and maintains the continuous satisfaction of needs. The concept of sustainability includes not only the sustainability of environment and resources, but also the sustainability of society and culture.

After sustainable design, the concept of low-carbon design has emerged. The so-called low carbon design aims to reduce human carbon emissions and reduce the destructive effects of the greenhouse effect. Low carbon design can be divided into two types: one is to re plan people's lifestyle, improve people's environmental awareness, and reduce carbon consumption through the redesign of daily life behavior mode without reducing living standards; the other is to achieve emission reduction through the application of energy conservation and emission reduction technologies or the development of new and alternative energy sources. It can be predicted that low-carbon design will become a key theme of future industrial design.


Post time: Jan-29-2023