Green Options

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Recently, I discussed the interaction between clean energy and the future of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The study cited makes it clear that unless we clean up power production, there isn’t much point in moving to PHEVs from regular, old hybrids (HEVs).

Interestingly enough, MIT has just come out with a new study, profiled by Green Car Congress, which studies all sorts of vehicle options and how each vehicle will perform in well-to-wheel greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. This study was done particularly on HEVs, PHEVs, battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs). The MIT researchers came to the conclusion that ultimately, electric propulsion in automobiles could eliminate our dependence on petroleum, which to me sounds like an exciting prospect, regardless of GHG emissions.

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to attend a conference at Design Continuum’s Boston Headquarters office. I attended on behalf of Ecolect with co-founders, Joe Gebbia and Matt Grigsby, as a team materials correspondent. For those of you who don’t know about Ecolect, it is a free community-based website for learning about and sourcing sustainable materials. I serve as a materials correspondent and help to generate community relationships and material information. The site is intended for architects, designers, engineers, graphic artists, but more specifically everyone! The conference was focused on Green Design- the impact of the field of design, and lessons on how to solve problems while helping the world, not hurting it.

Director of Design Continuum, Mark Bates opened the event with a presentation of the design firm’s overall footprint. He estimated that they’ve added about 500 million parts to the world during their 25 years of practice. These parts are anything from screws to Intel processors to cellophane package display windows- anything included in the overall manifestation and presentation of a product. Considering these facts coming from a design consultancy that tends to take a conscious, all encompassing design analysis approach to everything they work on, it makes me wonder about the impact of the companies designing toys for McDonalds.

He sent us with the message of- think of design in terms of aiding the efficiency and health of our earth and future. To begin to understand the perceptions of “sustainability” and “green” to the average consumer, Design Continuum has launched an internal study project called Color Blind. They are obtaining comments from everyday consumers about products and life to hopefully design from both sides- sustainability and the consumer.

The day long conference was broken down into hour-long presentations during which Q&A was included. “Their approach was a model other conferences could learn from - one day, comfortably paced, intimately sized, focused on one topic, inviting speakers with different views, and …free,” says Joe Gebbia.

Image Source: Graphic / MIT School of Architecture and Planning

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