Sustainable Design Methodology for Industrial Designers within an Organization with no Environmental Policy

Abstract

Industrial Designers play a pivotal role in shaping the products used, consumed and disposed of. Designers in the United States play an even more important role than most other countries in the world due to our unbalanced consumer driven society. Typically, progress related to the environment has been driven by government regulation, public demand, business leaders and managers. There has been slow progress over the past decades; however, this progress can be accelerated if it is addressed from multiple fronts. In other words, sustainability needs to be addressed from the bottom-up as well as from the top-down. A methodology is needed to aid designers with deep convictions to apply sustainable design principles to their work without relying on a mandate from up-per management.