You can use this space to share and upload curricula ideas, lesson plans, visual aids, research and projects, or to just discuss the current happenings in the industry with respect to social issues and environmental concerns, as well as the latest trends in socially responsible design.
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The 3rd installment of FIBERcast went live on July 31, 2009. This episodes theme? Environmental Sustainability in the Apparel Industry. Thought I might offer some notes that stood out from the 1st half of the broadcast.
Moderator: Marsha Dickson, Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies, University of Delaware
Guest Speakers: Will Phillips, Manager, Environmental Strategy, Under Armour Inc., Rick Horwitch, Vice President, Solutions Business Development and Marketing, for Bureau Veritas – Consumer Products Services, Dr. Suzanne Loker, Professor, Cornell University, Huantian Cao, Associate Professor, University of Delaware
The talk started off with Professor Huantian Cao breaking down the UDSAI Policy Guide (which mainly focuses on the environment).
Dr. Suzanne Loker defined sustainability broadly as “economic development, the environment, the impacts of people in their consumption choices, and technological advancement.” This signifies “improving, building upon and overall achieving responsible practices that are mentioned over the long term. Sustainability is at the foundation of social and environmental responsibility, yet it may not be achievable. Rather, we should strive for improvement” (Loker).
Loker cites a quote taken from Yvon Chouinard, the Founder and Chairman of Patagonia, as stated in the Preface of the book Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?
“To be sustainable means that you would take-out of a system the same amount of energy as put in, with no pollution or waste. A sustainable process is one you can do forever without exhausting resources or fouling the environment […] There has never yet been, nor is there now a sustainable business or sustainable fashion on this planet, and no one should ever pretend in setting out for a place that you’ve actually gotten there.”
Sustainability is a continuous goal, one that can never be achieved. Rather, it is something to strive towards. In this way, it needs to be larger than individual businesses.
Huantian Cao covered 3 equally important pillars of sustainability:
Speaking in detail on what companies can do today to get started on their environmental sustainability in terms of scope of business activities, both Loker and Rick Horwitch, Vice President, Solutions Business Development and Marketing, for Bureau Veritas – Consumer Products Services stressed their belief that every member of the supply chain has a contributing role in decreasing the environmental impact through input and matching production to consumption.
To get started immediately, Horwitch suggests companies tackle the issues through design, production, supply chain, and corporate perspective:
Design perspective
Production
Supply chain
Corporate perspective
What is the business case to engage in this shift?
Horwitch maintains that while the front end may be more expensive, “sustainability is about the triple bottom line and a for profit solution. Sustainable process is an efficient process.”
Triple bottom line? Remember those three pillars Huantian Cao mentioned:
For more information, you can listen in on this FIBERcast, as well as previous broadcasts, here.
Resources to walk away with:
University of Delaware’s Sustainable Apparel Initiative
Restricted Substance List (RSL)
Patagonia: The Footprint Chronicles
Source: FIBERcast
Nike's Considered Design shoebox
Nike has adopted an interesting approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). As previously mentioned, the company has seemingly managed to connect its sustainability platform to its innovation platform. Trash Talk is one example, the packaging the shoe comes in is another:
The shoe will also be packaged in a new Considered Design shoebox. Like Nike’s first recycled content box in 1995, this new box is still made from 100 percent recycled fiber, but now features a new design which reduces the fiber content by approximately 30 percent. (CSRwire)
"Considered is not Compromising. It's rethinking." (Nike)
According to the company, “Nike’s Considered ethos challenges designers to use environmentally-preferred materials, reduce waste, create sustainable manufacturing processes and use innovation to help reduce our overall environmental impact.”
You can learn more about Nike’s Considered Design Ethos by visiting their Considered Design Index.
In terms of lifecycle analysis, however, Nike has set some goals that I believe are worth considering:
All this will be done through the company’s Considered Design Ethos:
Are you up for the challenge? I’m not convinced the marketing campaign (below) will help motivate you…but hey, why not.
Andrew Hartman, Design Director from Philips Design, Claudia Kotchka, Former Head of Design at Procter & Gamble, and Valerie Casey, Lead of Digital Experience Practice at IDEO and Founder of the Designers Accord, were among 20 star designer judges at the IDEA 2009: Designing a Better World competition that took place in May of this year.
Nike Trash Talk
Gold Award/Best in Show
Category: Ecodesign
Design: Kasey Jarvis, Andreas Harlow, Fred Dojan, and Dan Johnson, Nike (U.S.)
This performance basketball shoe is made from manufacturing waste. It incorporates leftover materials—leather and synthetic leather, foam, and rubber—into new shoes without sacrificing any of the performance aspects that come from shoes made from virgin materials.
Source: BusinessWeek
How can education foster sustainable change toward socially responsible fashion and apparel design and manufacturing practices?
Social Alterations hopes to foster socially responsible fashion design education through aggregating relevant material that will inspire fashion/textile and apparel instructors, researchers, designers and design enthusiasts to get on board with thinking about consequence in the industry.
Sign up to the Social Alterations Forum if you’re interested in sharing and contributing ideas on curriculum, research, projects, materials, design, etc. with this community.
This week, Michael Roller challenged young designers to reconsider saving the world.
Stop Saving the World
…Unless you actually are. Designers have identified that their skills can help people beyond the mass markets of the first world, but we’re far from making a big impact on our own. The truth is, some designers like talking about making a difference more than they like actually doing it. Raising awareness is only a small first step towards fixing one of the world’s many problems. If you really want to make a difference, think about volunteering at a soup kitchen…or moving to India.
Ramsey Ford is an industrial designer who recently took on this challenge by moving to India and starting the non-profit Design Impact. “Last year, I attended the ‘Design for a Better World’ conference at RISD. What struck me most about the conference was that the common thread was not design, but entrepreneurship. The mantra for the weekend seemed to be, ‘shut up and do it’.” Ramsey plans to make a real difference by gaining empathy for India’s true design needs. Admittedly, this is pretty bold, but what have you done lately to design a better future?
Rolland is merely advising recent graduates to, in a sense, shut-up and get-started already. In the context of ‘self-promotion’, selling your personal brand as ‘sustainable’ or ‘green’ (or whatever buzz word you happen to run with) is really nothing above insult if you are not in fact taking this challenge seriously.
Matthew E. May wrote “Design Thinking 101” earlier this month and cited the Wikipedia definition of the process (taken from a 1969 book by Herbert Simon called The Sciences of the Artificial):
Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success. Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a creative process based around the “building up” of ideas.
Pergaps the real challenge is for designers to stay away from Design Thinking as a brand image alone, and move creatively toward incorporating the process into every aspect of their work.
Source: Core 77, Open Forum
Ethics have a high profile in the fashion industry today. Are you equipped, as a tutor or student, with the knowledge and skills to engage with these issues?
Fashioning an Ethical Industry (FEI) runs staff training and student workshops at schools, colleges and universities on themes related to working conditions in garment manufacture. Through our training events we encourage staff and students to critically examine different perspectives on workers’ rights and initiatives to improve conditions.
FEI training combines our extensive knowledge with a participatory educational approach, building on participants’ existing knowledge and experience and using a range of activities and different media such as films, role-play and presentations.
More info: Fashioning an Ethical Industry
Source: FEI
Based out of Toronto, Canada, Fashion Takes Action is a member’s based organization dedicated to transforming the fashion industry. FTA helps businesses, as well as designers, students, consumers and researchers, become more aware of their social and environmental impact, while learning the benefits of operating a more sustainable business.
Up this week on the FTA site is video coverage of their recent event “Sustainable Fashion 101.” Presentations from FTA Founder, Kelly Drennan, Andrea Stairs, Head of Marketplace Development at eBay, Ellen Karp, President of Anerca, Elsa Poncet, ECOCERT Europe, and Lorraine Smith, an Independent Sustainability Consultant can be viewed here.
Also, stay tuned to FTA this Fall for the upcoming workshop “Eco Garble – Eco Garbage = Eco Garb” with Lorraine Smith.
Here is an overview of the workshop:
Many clothing retailers are offering eco-products in response to consumer demand for green. But it’s not always clear why products are eco-friendly; in some cases the environment may actually be the worse for wear in spite of the greenest of intentions.
There is a lot of information about environmentally sustainable fabric out there. Some of it is helpful and based on scientific, time-tested facts. Some of it is greenwash. And some of it is a confusing mix of both.
Why is bamboo more sustainable than cotton? Or is it?
Is the flame-retardant in babies’ sleepwear safe for the environment? Or for babies?
Why do some say wool is baaaad for the environment even though it’s renewable?
This half-day workshop will take a life cycle approach to garments and environmental sustainability. During the workshop participants will:
Talk 7: The Movement of Cultural Interpretation – Pattern is Now Good, Pattern is Now Bad (Clips from Ikea’s “Chuck Out Your Chintz” campaign, c.1993.)
Thanks to the Fashioning and Ethical Industry Bulletin for highlighting these upcoming talks – Slow Textiles: Making the Myths Visible-A New Approach to Sustainability in Design & Design Education 2009/10. The slow textiles group presents a platform for Design, Community, Dialogue and the dissemination of Textile Methodologies that are Sustaining as well as Sustainable. There are 9 talks in total. You can catch the details on the Social Alterations Events Calendar. Stay tuned for more updates- sessions 1-5 are up on the calendar, but the dates for sessions 6-9 are TBA.
Dr. Emma Neuberg’s forthcoming talks and workshops are designed to stimulate debate in and around the subject of Sustainable Thinking in Design & Design Education. These unique and pioneering dialogues arise from 15 years teaching experience and design research. They weave design, design education, psychology, well-being theory, sociology and semiotics into a new structure for study and dialogue.
Talk 1(November 21st, 2009): Oppression and Dysfunction Through Design – A Window on to Destructive Social Aspects of Design
Talk 2 (February 27th, 2010): Different Ways of Thinking – An Introduction to Making Thought Conscious
Talk 3 (March 13th, 2010): Identification of Designers’ Motivations – Locating & Giving Voice to the Designer’s Long-term Vision
Talk 4 (May 15th, 2010): Group Dynamics, Power Struggles & Social Hierarchies – Shedding Light on Old Patterns of Production
Talk 5 (June 26th, 2010): Imperative Psychoanalytic Tools for Design Practice – Introduction to Projection and the Mechanics of Enactment
Talk 6 (TBA): Repression and Dysfunction in Design – A Window on to the Dark Forces Manifest in Products
Talk 7 (TBA): The Movement of Cultural Interpretation – Pattern is Now Good, Pattern is Now Bad
Talk 8 (TBA): Imperative Psychoanalytic Tools for Critical Theory – An Introduction to Object Relations Theory
Talk 9 (TBA): Semiotics as Starting Place – A Designer’s Constructive Tool
Source: FEI Bulletin
NOTE: This event has been re-scheduled from June when it was cancelled due to the tube strike
Title: What not to wear – child labour and cotton
Location: London
Link out: Click here
Description: Uzbekistan is the third biggest exporter of cotton in the world. Its booming cotton industry generates over US$1billion annually, but the industry, which largely supplies the European market, is underpinned by a system of state-sponsored forced labour, particularly of children.
This event will focus on what can be done to end the use of forced labour in the cotton industry. Considering the action taken by some retailers to ban Uzbek cotton from their products, why do other retailers continue to use it? How can we as consumers ensure that the products we buy are free from slave labour and that we are not inadvertently contributing to the problem?
Film Screening of White Gold: the true cost of cotton by the Environmental Justice Foundation followed by a panel discussion featuring Lucy Siegle, journalist, author and presenter (chair), Joanna Ewart-James (Anti-Slavery International), Juliette Williams (The Environmental Justice Foundation) and Steve Grinter (International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers’ Federation).
This event will be hosted by EJF, Amnesty International and Anti-Slavery International on October 8th at the Human Rights Action Centre in London.
Source: FEI
Start Time: 7pm
Date: 2009-10-08