A recent Financial Times article, entitled “Plastic: The Elephant In the Room” by Sam Knight, was particularly meaningful to me. It illustrated an important point. Too often, ecological issues are presented in simplistic, black and white terms–plastic is bad, glass is good; things that decompose are good, things that don’t are bad. However, the reality is that sustainable solutions need to address complex issues involving many gray areas and dichotomies.

Case in point: during a recent visit at a recycling facility, I discovered that polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, typically used in milk packaging, have a very high commercial value, because they are recyclable. Meanwhile, colored glass bottles have a very low commercial value, because the brown glass that results from their recycling is considered undesirable. So, the PET bottles are carefully rescued from the trash, while the rest of the glass piles up in great big mounds around the facility.
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We recently completed our first environmental impact summary, which was a new and challenging exercise for us. Overall, it’s been an enlightening and useful process.

Continuum’s total operational footprint for 2007 was 1,160 metric tons or 8.9 metric tons per person. Surprisingly, our 130 person firm generated the equivalent CO2 emission of a little more than 3 households of average size through heating, cooling and running all the things that we plug in. As always, there’s more to the story. 77% of our operational impact was generated through employee transportation! Air travel was our largest single impact and it represents 55% of our total footprint. Getting to and from work on a daily basis contributed another 22%. The remainder was made up of our electricity and heating. Now that we have the report, we can target and prioritize our reduction efforts.

We set out to determine our footprint in January and we hired a firm to help us with the process. Unfortunately, along the way we realized that the company neglected to include half of our energy consumption in their summary, so we set out to correct it. It took us a while to uncover the right protocol, conversions and calculations. However, having gone through the reporting process ourselves, we understand it much better. Basically, all you need is a summary of your annual utility bills and the amount of your travel and commuting. With these numbers you can use established conventions to determine your baseline footprint

In hindsight, it seems like a relatively simple process and I encourage everyone to give it a try. Certainly, having a reputable firm perform the audit is ideal, because it allows you to avoid self-reporting. Down the road, when carbon emission is regulated, everyone will be required to have a third party validate their footprint. By then, there should be a legitimate set of firms to choose from.

For more information, check out our base-line Environmental Footprint Report.

Great talk by Mark Bittman, NYTimes culinary journalist, on how we’re diligently marching off an agricultural cliff to certain planetary demise.

Bittman offers a humorous retrospective of American consumption, from the grain-obsessed 20th century to the carb-phobic, protein-gorging 21st, and how our food industry is effecting harm on the environment and our health. Parts of his rant are reassuring (it’s not your fault you still crave overly-processed macaroni and cheese; there was a war somewhere and Mom had to find work at the Twinkie plant downtown), and other parts less reassuring (so you enjoy that organic salmon? It was vacuum-packed in plastic, crated in styrofoam and flown up on a jumbo-jet from Chile). His data is thorough and his observations sobering.

The takeaway? Buy local. Buy seasonal. More produce. Less meat.

What’s Wrong With What We Eat
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/263

During my annual post-Earth Day news roundup, I found this inspiring article about design’s great potential for creating sustainability.

Nature has rhythms, people have rhythms. In fact, we ought to remind ourselves every so often that people are part of nature, too. Our interactions with nature are choreographed by our designs, so when we embrace natural rhythms, the outcomes can be delightfully compelling.

Imagine, for instance, an urban landscape powered in part by local foot traffic, or a streetlight system that, by dimming and brightening with the lunar cycle, saves 90-95% of the energy typically used. These innovations are not indifferent automatons. They are active participants in the cyclical rhythms of nature, at once saving energy and sparking wonder. Most importantly, they are part of an ever-increasing pool of nature-inspired designs that give reason to be optimistic about the future.

Congratulations to featured designer Elizabeth Redmond, founder of the POWERLeap energy-harnessing floor tile system. She works with our good friends over at Ecolect.net and attended our Green Design event back in December 2007.

This past weekend, Continuum hosted a sustainable design training program for clients and colleagues. The training was delivered by Dr. Benjamin Linder of Olin College. Ben has been giving this training to Continuum staff, in chunks of 15-20 people. We ask a lot of him: take what you teach over 2 or 3 courses, add a professional perspective, and then trim it down to fit in a total of about 12 hours. It’s not everything you need to know about sustainable design, just the first few things. As Ben says, “This program will change your head, but you need more training to teach your hands.”

The attendees ranged in seniority and spread across industries, from appliances to building materials to lighting. The best part of the sessions was the discussion among the attendees. Each brought a different perspective to the design exercises, and each had a story to share about the progress they made and challenges they faced bringing sustainability into their business activities. Late in the second day, it occurred to the group that Wal-Mart had provided the strongest impetus for change in the companies of several attendees. These companies had wanted to adopt more sustainable practices, but the demands of business always took precedence. As soon as Wal-Mart began making demands of suppliers, the intent to green up was galvanized into action.

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This looks very promising.

2x as bright as LEDs for the same power
Near full spectrum light, similar to the light of the sun.

15 lumens/Watt = typical incandescent bulb
70 lumens/Watt = typical LED
140 lumens/Watt = Luxim’s new plasma bulb

Luxim homepage

Attending a conference on “greening” the supply chain probably sounds as exciting as a conference on, well, managing the supply chain.

Last week I attended a conference in NYC called The Ethical Sourcing Forum 2008. It was 2 days spent steeped in a set of important and exciting questions that companies increasingly will be compelled to address:

• How to maintain an environmental commitment (which first implies you have to have one) when 90% of your eco-footprint is from your supply chain?
• What will happen to brand reputations when consumers wake up to the ethical, moral and environmental impact of outsourcing? (Big questions for a company like Coke, for instance, that has 70% of it’s value tied up in its brand).
• If you have an environmental message that really matters (and many companies are trying to do radical things in this terrain; many aren’t doing nearly enough) how do you break through the greenwash and natural consumer cynicism?

A leading issue in the conversations-mainly from the buyers and global procurement managers-was around the importance of transparency. Transparency with their often vast, global and complex supply partners. For example, Starbucks has 100 buyers in 3 countries procuring everything from coffee to tiles, from paper cups to lawn care services. No matter what stuff you’re after, the challenge is the same: How to achieve a trusted, reliable and consistent information stream so you can avoid the dreaded lead in toys or poison in pet food conundrum. How can you compel your suppliers to own the impacts of their processes? This is something that WalMart is taking a lead on with their Scorecard initiative which strives to achieve a 5% reduction in packaging from their own thousands of suppliers by 2013. The sleeping giant is waking.

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This is well worth a read.
“What are the Sustainability Implications of Peak Population?”
by Alex Steffen, Worldchanging

I especially like the notion of adapting design to function within a world of limits NOW so that we provide future generations with as much opportunity (in terms of resources and global climate stability) to meet our imminent population challenges.

Also interesting is the concept of the Great Wager– we have a one-time shot (we only have enough resources and biocapacity to build this new civilization once, so we’d better get it right the first time). The debate rages on, but the time to act is most definitely now, and we kinda have to act very well and get it right the first time.

Some of the comments at the end of the blog are also very enlightening, thought-provoking and challenging.

Sustainability. Green. Environmentally Conscious.

What does it all mean? What are the implications; the repercussions, the challenges and the opportunities? As designers, we have an inherent interest and responsibility to look closely at these topics and discover solutions. At Continuum, we believe the solutions and the opportunities in “designing green” exist in better understanding the behaviors, perceptions and motivations of consumers.

Working with our partner, Communispace, Continuum has engaged in a thorough study of consumer behavior as it relates to all things green and sustainable. The study is called Colorblind.

This animation anchored the Coloblind exhibit at the Greener Gadgets conference.

On February 1, 2008, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, journalists, and designers gathered to discuss the business case for the greening of the consumer electronics industry. Greener Gadgets is a one day conference featuring key representatives from some of the largest consumer electronics companies in the world, innovators from academic thinktanks, members of startups focused on renewable energy, and some of the leading minds in the word of sustainable design and business. Topics addressed included: design for sustainability, product life cycle management, take-back and recycling programs, energy efficiency, greener materials, and green lifestyle and product marketing. An attached gallery space featured a green prototype office display and technology exhibits from companies on the cutting edge of green tech.

Check out Continuum sustainability champion Grant Kristofek’s recap of the event. Check out the imagery as well.