So what does all this mean for designers and design educators? Design is a commercial corner stone of de- veloped economies and a growing activity in developing economies. Designers play an increasingly pivotal role in commerce from product design, their packaging, ad- vertising, web sites, promotion and communications
5.6 Conclusion: the environment is not well; what to do
and much, much more. Tischner (2000) writes that
“More than 80% of all product-related costs and environ- ment impacts of a product during its manufacture, use and disposal are determined during the product-planning phase.” Therefore all design decisions must always con-
sider the ecological cost in order that design solutions have the least ecological impact possible. As we have learnt “Despite technological developments, we are still
intimately connected to our environment. Our lives de- pend on ecosystem goods such as food, timber, genetic resources, and medicines. Ecosystems also provide ser- vices including water purification, flood control, coastline stabilization carbon sequestration, waste treatment, bio- diversity conservation, soil generation, disease regulation, maintenance of air quality and cultural benefits” (Ayensu,
et al.,1999). Meanwhile “… socio-economic development
is almost always accompanied by the loss of natural hab- itat and species. Short-term economic gains may thus trump longer-term benefits for human society creating vulnerabilities that could be avoided or corrected with enough knowledge about the role of biodiversity” (Midg-
ley, 2012). This uniquely challenging dilemma already calls for enormous innovation because designers have a colossal task of balancing design activity with an un- derstanding of biodiversity and minimising ecological impact. However, although the population growth rate is in decline, nonetheless, the population is estimated to increase to about 9 billion by 2050. It should be clear that so far our efforts to minimise our ecological impact are inadequate due to our exponential demands on the world’s resources. In the new design paradigm design innovation has to find new ways through which it can contribute to the restoration of ecosystems and the en- vironment. Using less of Nature’s bounty is not an an- swer for a sustainable future. We have to integrate ways into design activity which increase the planet’s Natural capital. The communication of our predicament is cru- cial so as to enable all to understand and act. Design has enormous potential to communicate knowledge about our dependency on ecosystems and the life sup- porting services they provide through the visualization, communication and dissemination of information by different media to all stakeholders: the planet’s inhab- itants. This information must reach all from primary school children to policy makers and presidents.
Earth Stewardship or tithe-ship
Victor Papanek (1971) proposed that all designers should devote a tenth of their time to working for “the
75 per cent of mankind in need.” However, the tithe could
be for repairing and restoring our natural capital, the ecosystems on which we all depend.
There are many organisations for which one can be- come a volunteer, for example the charity, Trees for Life (TFL) has planted a million native trees to restore the Caledonian forest in Scotland and also to repopulate it with native animals. Invasive species are being removed and the aim is to plant another million trees (Rees, 2009). However, will voluntary action be sufficient to protect our ecosystems while large corporations drive the loss of natural capital to generate profits? We all need to personally re-engage with Nature. It could be a universal and integral component of education. It could be promoted to become a social norm.
In many countries houses are protected from fire with the attentive availability of the fire service. In many countries the police exist to protect private property from theft. How are we to protect our planet’s renew- able resources and their future provision for both our own future and the futures of those to come? “Overex-
ploitation of renewable resources today has a high cost on the welfare of future generations …” write Hauser, et al.
(2014) “Exhausting the resource maximizes the payoff for
the present generation, but leaves all future generations empty-handed. Here we show that the resource is almost always destroyed if extraction decisions are made indi- vidually. This failure to cooperate with the future is driven primarily by a minority of individuals who extract far more than what is sustainable. In contrast, when extractions are democratically decided by vote, the resource is consistently sustained. Voting is effective for two reasons. First, it allows a majority of cooperators to restrain defectors. Second, it reassures conditional cooperators that their efforts are not futile. Voting, however, only promotes sustainability if it is binding for all involved. Our results have implications for policy interventions designed to sustain intergenerational public goods” (Hauser, et al, 2014).
The key question is: how can we design and inte- grate strategies into society which will increase our nat- ural capital or at least conserve it? Have our democra- cies become too corrupt, so that for example, fishing continues until fish stocks collapse? Do we need new methods of monitoring democratic decisions? Could monitoring by UAVs help to ensure democratic deci-
5.7 References and further reading
sions are followed. The problem of caring for “inter- generational public goods” is one requiring answers at many levels. Many of those answers could be from designers. The work of the Nobel Prize Winning econ- omist Elinor Ostrom (see Glossary) shows that the del- egation of resource management to local communities can result in the resource’s sustainable management due to their direct commitment. However, those far re- moved from the resource, such as government bodies (and probably more concerned with jobs and profits) manage the resource badly as has been well illustrated by the European Fisheries Policy. Ostrom’s (2012) work confirmed that “the tragedy of the commons” (Hardin, 1968) can be avoided.
In September 2014, The World Wildlife Fund (WWF, 2014), together with its partners Global Footprint Net- work and the Water Footprint Network published the
Living Planet Report 2014. “The Living Planet Report is the world’s leading, science-based analysis on the health of our planet and the impact of human activity. Knowing we only have one planet, WWF believes that humanity can make better choices that translate into clear benefits for ecology, society and the economy today and in the long term … This latest edition of the Living Planet Report is not for the faint-hearted. One key point that jumps out is that the Living Planet Index (LPI), which measures more than 10,000 representative populations of mammals, birds, rep- tiles, amphibians and fish, has declined by 52 per cent since 1970.
Put another way, in less than two human generations, pop- ulation sizes of vertebrate species have dropped by half. These are the living forms that constitute the fabric of the ecosystems which sustain life on Earth – and the barometer of what we are doing to our own planet, our only home. We ignore their decline at our peril” (WWF, 2014).
This appalling news requires truly innovative social measures and systemic change to restore our ecosys- tems and the animal populations which play a key role in their maintenance. Earth-stewardship, proposed above is one strategy in which all could participate. Another is Positive Impact Design, mentioned in Chapters 2 and 15. “What is urgently required is ‘positive impact design’ so
that the by-product of design activity is the creation and in- crease of the Earth’s natural capital” and not the creation
of a footprint but the removal of the footprint!
Now, for just a brief moment “We are at a key junc-
ture in history where biodiversity loss is occurring daily and accelerating in the face of population growth, cli-
mate change, and rampant development. Simultaneously, we are just beginning to appreciate the wealth of human health benefits that stem from experiencing nature and biodiversity” (Sandifer, et al. 2015). Designers must com-
municate to all: policy makers and stakeholders, i.e. everyone, that just as there are many ways to destroy Nature there are also many ways to care for her that will increase our Natural capital.
5.7
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6.1 Introduction
Peter Stebbing
6 WATER
“When the well’s dry, we know the value of water.” Benjamin Franklin (Tony Allan,
2011)
“… the use of the term “peak water” is flawed, the idea of maximizing both social and ecological benefits that water provides is more relevant. We propose the idea of “peak ecological water” as the point when maximum benefits to human society and the ecosystem can occur.” Meena Palaniappan
& Peter Gleick, 2009