Life-Enhancing Design Versus Sustainable Design
By NunoXEI • May 22nd, 2008 • Category: Blog
Consider, first, that reduced resource use and sustainable lifestyles, on both the cultural and the individual level, need not mean deprivation.
As an individual-level example, studies show that bicycle commuters are happier than car and transit commuters. As a cultural-level example, people who live in pedestrian-friendly areas like villages, where cars are used less frequently, tend to have more friends, the research shows.
In both cases–how a person chooses to travel and how a culture develops its land–the scenario that uses fewer resources results in better quality of life. The happiness of people, therefore, does not depend on energy and material use. It depends upon whether materials and energy are used effectively to improve well-being.
Perhaps the designer of truly sustainable products and systems must ask, therefore, not just whether the product or system has the lowest possible energy and materials input. Perhaps the designer must also ask whether use of those valuable ecological resources can be justified in terms of quality of life improvement.
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NunoXEI is Co-Founder of TheGreenRocket.com and self proclaimed internet-surfing-guru. You can find his personal blog at NunoXEI.com, the home of his podcast, The Lowdown, his comic-related properties and his webcomic, Republic Domain.
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