M4
Innovation Studio Fall 2015
Better Experiences with Smaller Footprints
James
Chu , Andy Ogden, Lloyd Walker
The Challenge:
In a future context that
begins now and looks forward for 15 years:
Create strategies for new valuable brands and consumer
experiences
that are enabled by
specific product and service system designs
that address emergent
needs, improve quality of life and /or are desirable
in a context of new technologies, policy changes,
and increased cultural consciousness focused on the reduction of human ecological
footprint
Texts:
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by Michael Braungart andWilliam McDonough
by Larry Keeley and Helen Walters
Background:
The Cost of Ecological Overspending
Background:
The Cost of Ecological Overspending
Throughout most of history, humanity has used nature’s resources to build cities and roads, to provide food and create products, and to absorb our carbon dioxide at a rate that was well within Earth’s budget. But in the mid-1970s, we crossed a critical threshold: Human consumption began outstripping what the planet could reproduce.
According to Global Footprint Network’s calculations, our demand for renewable ecological resources and the services they provide is now equivalent to that of more than 1.5 Earths. The data shows us on track to require the resources of two planets well before mid-century.
The fact that we are using, or “spending,” our natural capital faster than it can replenish is similar to having expenditures that continuously exceed income. In planetary terms, the costs of our ecological overspending are becoming more evident by the day. Climate change—a result of greenhouse gases being emitted faster than they can be absorbed by forests and oceans—is the most obvious and arguably pressing result. But there are others—shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse, higher commodity prices and civil unrest, to name a few. The environmental and economic crises we are experiencing are symptoms of looming catastrophe. Humanity is simply using more than what the planet can provide.
The Ecological Footprint is a data-driven metric that tells us how close we are to the goal of sustainable living. Footprint accounts work like bank statements, documenting whether we are living within our ecological budget or consuming nature’s resources faster than the planet can renew them.
Our efforts are fueled by a future vision in which human demand on nature is monitored as closely as the stock market. A time when designers are shaping products, buildings, and citiesthat have one-planet Footprints. A world where all humans prosper and development succeeds because we are finally recognizing ecological constraints and using innovation to advance more than just the economic bottom line.
·
Private
consumption by households increased fourfold between 1960 and 2000, when it
reached more than US$20 trillion. The 12% of the world's people living in North
America and Western Europe account for 60% of this consumption, while the
one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa account for less than 4%.
The richest 20% in the world account for 86% of total private consumption;
the poorest 20% account for only 1.3%. (Worldwatch Institute, United Nations Development Program)
·
In 2004, the United States accounted for less than 5% of the
world's population and 33% of global consumption. The rise in consumption has
not led to a rise in happiness among U.S. consumers. About a third of people in
the U.S. report being "very happy," the same share as in 1957, when
they were only half as wealthy. Americans are also some of the most overworked
people in the industrial world, putting in the equivalent of nine more weeks on
the job each year than the average European. (World Resources Institute,Worldwatch Institute)
·
The average person living in the United States uses 300
shopping bags worth of raw materials every week - weighing as much as a
large luxury car. We would need the resources of three planets for
everyone on Earth to live as people in the United States do. If
resources were shared equally, everyone on the planet would have the
lifestyle of an average Italian. (World Resources Insitute, Center for a New American Dream)
·
We are targeted by over 1,500 commercial messages a day, up from
560 per day in the 1960s. Advertisers are increasingly targeting young people.
Companies spend more than $200 billion on advertising in the U.S. each year
(and $435 billion worldwide). Less than $50 billion a year could provide
adequate food, clean water, and basic education for the world's poorest. People
around the world spend much more than this amount on makeup, perfumes, pet
food, ocean cruises, and ice cream. (Center for a New American Dream,Worldwatch Institute)
·
Over the past decade, credit card debt among 18-24 year-olds in
the United States more than doubled. National surveys reveal that kids are
leaving high school without a basic understanding of issues relating to savings
and credit card debt. (Demos)
·
The Ecological Footprint (the amount of the earth’s surface that
it takes to provide everything each person uses) of the average person in the
United States is about 12 times larger than the footprint of the average inhabitant
of India. So the 4.1 million babies born in the United States this year
will have almost the same impact on the earth as the 27.6 million babies born
in India. (Redefining Progress)
The world's richest
countries make up only one-fifth of global population but account for 45% of
all meat consumption, 58% of total energy use, 84% of paper use, and 87% of
vehicle ownership. At the other end of the spectrum, the poorest fifth of the
world's population - more than one billion people - still lack food, shelter,
housing, water and sanitation, and access to electricity. (United Nations Development Programme
