How can you begin to work environmental good into your personal design process?
A long time before I was born, the Earth began to die. As a society, we fought to grow, explore, create, expand and build while all along damaging the one constant we need to continue on. Now more than ever a change needs to be made in this world. A change to stop harming our planet but to start healing it. This is no easy task and there is no one answer, but one thing is for sure, it is going to take all of us collectively to do it.
As designers, we are given a unique opportunity to help combat the damage that is being done to our planet. We are in a position of power when it comes to the values we represent and how we will express them. I think that we all have a huge responsibility to begin working together in order to inspire environmental good in this world. A quote from one of the readings stuck out to me today. “Our first green products must be ourselves.” I think this quote is powerful because of how true it is. We can create green products, promote environmentally friendly messages and have core values that align with those messages but that won’t make a difference. What will make a difference is the changing of all of us at our core to want to become green and help the environment.
There are a lot of ways that businesses could and should implement design for good into day-to-day work. For instance, companies should respect nature and create safe objects of long-term value. This means not creating something that will end up being damaging to future generations or require severe maintenance in the future. Another thing that we can do to help is eliminate the concept of waste and use natural systems where there is no waste. As designers these are things that can be illustrated and pushed for within a company or corporation.
Personally, I feel a big responsibility to use good within my design process. I want to make change in this world for the better and not contribute to the downfall of our planet. There is not a lot of time left to make a substantial change and it has never been so important that we as designers and we as a society make that change. I look forward to working for the benefit of the environment and using my design process to its full capabilities.
