GreenSteps

I'm taking part in the GreenSteps program, - a joint production between Griffith and Monash universities - learning to audit businesses for environmental impacts, energy and water use, waste production, carbon, etc. This weekend is the final weekend of 'training' before I do an internship inside a company or organization.

I've found a number of useful tools in quantifying these other inputs/ outputs of businesses, and a few strategies for trying to get businesses on board. Once the seminars are over, I think I'll have a few posts to share some ideas... and a nice glossy infographic or tool if I get the time/motivation.

Design Needs to Lose The "Sustainability Narrative"

The world is starting to get it. Design (and “design thinking”) is becoming recognized as an important element of running a successful business, and sustainable choices are now seen as opportunities rather than ball-and-chain necessities. Sustainability is being heralded as a new direction for businesses looking to build market share, stay competitive, and increase their profits. This isn't a new idea. Only recently, though, has sustainability in business actually meant anything. Shareholders now get angry when Corporate Sustainability Reports are withheld or delayed, and “green funds” have been established to allow investment into companies operating sustainably and ethically, or developing clean technology.

What else do you need to know? Look how GREEN it is!

Product design, as Victor Papanek labelled it, is the most unsustainable industry there is. Designers need to mix greater amounts of environmental consideration into their products. At the same time, we need to move away from selling products based solely on those merits. Designers need a break from the sustainability narrative.

I Hate Green: Tana Water Bar

Pretty much every day, I'll crawl through my RSS feeds – NotCot, Fast Company, Core77, Good Magazine, EcoGeek, and whatever else I can remember that day... and see a new handful of “Green _____ looks awesome and saves ______” postings. Skateboards that save water. Chairs that clean the air. Computer games that save starving kids in Africa.

Here's the Tana Water Bar: An “iconic, ecologically smart, and market-winning design.”

Claim: Will save 1000 water bottles from landfill per year, per household.

Photos, Music and Movies - Quantifying Data Sizes

Physical storage VS digital storage

Pretty cool infographic illustrating how digital nformation has compressed itself over the years from vinyl to cassette to CD, etc... It also has some interesting info on the sheer volume of data we are posting online, and how much space that would take up in non-digital format.

America and Lawyers

How much money would be freed up in America, if there were fewer lawyers? What could that money be used for?

Driving and Talking on your Cell Phone: Good for the Economy?

This article is modified from an essay I wrote for an economics class. It explores the rationale behind laws against driving and talking on mobile phones, and attempts to estimate the monetary effects of both sides. How much are all those important, productive phone calls for work or business worth? How much is lost from the economy when people are seriously injured or killed as a result of driving and talking on cell phones?

Cell phones and the Environment (Infographic)

Great infographic I found at SayIAmGreen.com. Well organized and illustrated, a clear examination of something we rarely think about.