As designers, if we want to create innovative products. To do this the designer must considered the socio, economical and environmental impacts of the product or system. when designing. Designers often make small improvements to systems or products but fail to broaden their scope, hence never truly solve he bigger issues. We must look at the larger picture in order to be able to find the best solution to a problem. This broad thinking must be done at the start of the design process e.g. brain storming. when refining concepts, and choosing which one is best suited it is ideal to compare each idea against a criteria of how they impact society and its surrounding environment.
Manufacturing processes create tones of waste. A main cause of unnecessary waste is products which have been purposely designed with a short lifecycle. They are designed to break fast, so that the consumer is forced to repurchase the product over and over again. a great example of the is is mobile phones. To reduce this unnecessary waste we can make product more durable, they cane light in weight (use the smallest amount of material needed to produce them), make them easy to repair and upgrade or allow them to have a elegant end of life. The ideal situation is to have a closed loop cycle. However it is important to remember that a extended lifecycle is appropriate for every product, e.g. take out containers, or crisps packaging should not be designed to be around for years to come. Some designer find it hard and expensive to produce sustainable products, and often see the criteria as a burden. However by making you product more sustainable you can attract new buyers, and new revenues can be made.
'Energy is the ability of work'. The amount of energy it not only used to produce a product including manufacture and transport, but also the energy used to keep it functioning or the use stage is often highly unsustainable. It is the designers job to help the user to use energy more effectively by knowing the energy system and knowing where their designs fits in to this system. Designers can often minimise consumption by eliminating energy lost e.g. produced by mechanical friction, heat transfer or fluid drag.
