Lifecycle assesments and how design can minimize the negative impacts on the environment and society

This TED Talk opened my eyes in looking at sustainability from the perspective of a products entire life cycle.  I tweeted and shared a TED talk by +Leyla Acaroglu about how consumers choose between products based on our perception on what is environmentally sustainable.  The choice we are daily confronted by is the paper vs. plastic grocery bag when we go shopping.  However, by looking at the entire life cycle of the product, both are not environmentally sustainable.  One leads to adding waste to landfills,pollution and danger to wildlife in the oceans and the other, natural environment degradation through clearing of virgin land for plantations.

As consumers we need to rethink the way we consume and the products we buy because every stage of the product life cycle has an impact on the natural environment.  But of course consumer education only goes so far, as can be demonstrated by the uptake to recycle waste in Cape Town and the rest of South Africa.  Only 3.3% of South Africa's urban population recycle waste according to a 2010 study by the CSIR.  So instead of only focusing on user education we are need to look at certain product designs.  How can product design and innovation change consumer behaviour without the consumer even thinking about it?

Leyla spoke about 3 products: the refrigerator, the kettle and the infamous cell phone.  As an example, the refrigerator space worldwide is growing (1 cubic metre/year in the US) which means more energy usage AND more food wastage.  So even a simple household appliance has an impact on so many other systems: electricity, agricultural practises, food wastage (more than 30% of food worldwide thrown out as waste!), packaging, landfill growth, methane and green house gasses......the list continues.  There are so many other products one can discuss and how consumer use affects all the other systems adversely.  Even on a social level, the rare earths and minerals required to build cell phones.  The demand for these raw materials is even higher than the  worldwide human birthrate which means more than 7 billion cell phones currently in use, not to mention the cell phones thrown out as e-waste.  Never mind conflict diamonds, these minerals are now the conflict minerals used to fund the warlords in Central African Republic and other third world countries.  The design, usage and disposal of these devices need to change and manufacturers need to factor this in to their sustainability strategies.

What solutions do we have for this?  By identifying the impacts of each of the life cycle stages of products on the environment and society we can start finding ways to re-design the products and product life cycles themselves to minimise then negative impact on the environment and us.