Waste Neutral is a novel waste management philosophy developed by staff at the Eden Project. The philosophy encourages people to balance the weight of waste they throw out with the weight of recycled material in new products. Hence, being waste neutral means that no more waste reaches landfill.

Alongside ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ the Eden Project suggests that we should consider ‘reinvest’ to support products that divert recycled materials from landfill and do their bit to close the loop.

Waste Neutral

The Eden Project awards the Waste Neutral Mark to products which have been made with recycled materials and responsible manufacturing processes. These products helps neutralise the amount of waste that reaches landfill. The Reee Chair does this, saving 2.4kg of waste plastic from landfill, and will be launched with the waste neutral logo embossed onto each rib of the chair.

Pli asks: Can you do your bit to be Waste Neutral?

For more information on the Waste Neutral scheme visit www.edenproject.com/wasteneutral

Pli launched the Reee chair on Wednesday this week. Thanks to everyone who came to help us celebrate. We had a good party and I hear some of our friends carried on into the weee small hours.

But the main thing was for us to share the achievement of bringing an innovative product to market, with all the stakeholders, partners and well-wishers who have been instrumental in the project.

Pli began developing the Reee chair in 2006 with Sprout Design as the designer. Now we have a finished product, already in shops and installed in some homes, meeting rooms and (next week) lecture halls.

Here are some photos of the launch… (click to enlarge)

Christopher launching the chair

Ecò, Chiswick’s green living store, will show the Reee chair in their exhibition of sustainable seating designs from 13-23 September as part of the London Design Festival. You can find full details of the exhibition in the London Design Festival guide. Get along to 213 Chiswick High Road and try out the Reee chair when you get the chance.

Ecò

Here are the details…
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Here’s an announcement from our friends at Birmingham City University’s Institute of Art & Design…

Sustainability specialists will be converging at the ICC in Birmingham at 12 noon on Monday 15th September for an interactive debate. The focus of the debate will be looking at issues facing up and coming managers and future leaders in the development of green strategies in the work place. The event, organised by Birmingham City University, follows research into attitudes and influences in developing green policies, reviewing how individuals can pro actively apply green lifestyle choices in the workplace.

Grrreen Debate

The Big Debate chaired by the BBC’s special correspondent Richard Bilton, will feature Peter Ainsworth, Shadow Environment Secretary, leading blogger for treehugger.com, Leonora Oppenheim (expert in eco design) and Birmingham Post and Mail environmental correspondent Patrice John.
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The ubiquitous Treehugger has invited Jerry Stifelman to write more on green marketing and how we are certainly not going to save the world one cliché at a time. His suggestions are wise and succinct, boiling down more or less to ‘it’s the product, stupid’. If ‘green’ messages are going to work in mainstream markets they must finally advertise products that are good stuff as well as good thoughts.

The winners of the Observer ethical awards seem to bear out this simple truth. Finisterre, the ethical fashion category winner, is a great little company that stands out for me for its customer service and product quality. I bought one of their jackets last year and I soon forgot that their fibres are recycled and their suppliers fair.

Natural Collection, the winning online retailer (which does not, unfortunately, sell furniture) commented at the 2006 awards that they already have the ‘green’ customer’s attention: their website is aimed at mainstream customers with a green interest.

All this good sense brings me back to Pli’s principle: we don’t like ‘green’, we like ‘transparent‘. After an enjoyable day answering tough questions from potential retailers, I’m learning to keep the conversation focused on the benefits for the customer, not so much of the big picture stuff. Nobody’s going to kid them into selling something their customers don’t need. Why should they?

Futerra is a communications agency in London and New York — they specialise in corporate social responsibility. It’s rewarding to follow their thinking and ideas on communications and sustainability. If you are trying to learn the language of sustainable product design and how to communicate it, they’re on your wavelength.

Futerra has recently compiled it thinking on Greenwash…

They neatly summarise the concept of greenwash and why it’s corrosive to sustainable product design. Importantly, they also give you pointers to avoid looking like greenwash when your message really has merit.
(and see Pli’s tagged blog posts here)

Futerra’s blog often makes a good read, too.
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If a corporation has developed and patented a technology that has a general, environmentally-friendly benefit, then how can that patent protection be compatible with the pressing need to share and implement that kind of technology? What’s the point of inventing something environmentally useful if nobody else can use it, or can afford a license to use it?

The Eco-Patent Commons initiative sets out to address the issue in such a way as to reassure large, tech-driven corporations whose intellectual property is an important part of their market value. The scheme is being led by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and IBM in partnership with Nokia, Sony and Pitney Bowes.

As an example of how the scheme can work, have a look at
Nokia’s initiative which they annouced in January 2008.

For the full low-down on Eco-Patent Commons, click on the image…

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The rise of green awareness puts designers and manufacturers in a position where they have to back up what they say. A helping hand comes from FIRA (furniture industry research association), who launched an online software tool named Furniture FootPrinter, with an RSA event on April 17th. Pli was there to get a grasp of this brand new green tool for the industry.

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When researching eco-friendly consumer markets, it’s tough trying to find a balance between the opinions and ideas of enthusiasts, sceptics and the rest of us. The BBC News site has started to aggregate its consumer and industry environmental news into a section called the Green Room.

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For a while now, we’ve been using some research from WRAP (the UK Government’s Waste & Resources Action Programme) to compare the weight of our furniture with average weights for different UK furniture categories. It’s part of a project we are running to reduce weight in all our products as we update our designs.

The data we’re using comes from the appendix of the Household Waste Prevention Toolkit, which is a handy document aimed at local authorities. The toolkit (which is a PDF document) contains practical action points and supporting statistics. It’s very detailed and it could help to inform your thinking on domestic or community waste reduction… (click on the image)

The Sustainable Materials Programme at the Centre for Design, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) has one of the best programmes of practical research and development you can find. They developed the Ecospecifier service over several years.

I remember the hospitality of RMIT staff and students when I made a research trip to Australia back in 2003, where I met a bunch of designers just starting to develop their thinking on sustainability at the time, coached by Kjell Grant.

This excellent online resource by the Sustainable Materials Programme is worth a look if you are interested in specifying sustainable materials (click on the logo)…

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April 2002 saw the arrival of one of those rare books that stays interesting and relevant long after its publication. It seemed to have an instant impact on the small world of sustainable design. But looking back it’s better described as a slow-burner: its impact is still apparent as the issues it discussed are shouldered by a growing community of designers.

I bought my copy of Cradle to Cradle a year later, in April 2003. It’s been a touchstone ever since: at Pli, terms like ‘downcycling’ and ‘nutrients’ still permeate our discussions.

Here’s a question for you: if you have read Cradle to Cradle, what have you done that you can say is a direct result of the ideas you came across in its rather heavy plastic pages?

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There is a lot of buzz around ‘green’ and ’sustainable’ products. The big issue with this kind of marketing is that there is a big difference between saying green and being green. Read a previous post on greenwashing. The onus now lies on the consumer to check up on the manufacturer to make sure all their claims are accurate and no naughty indiscretions have been conveniently left out. The American Society of Interior Designers have developed a green products checklist which gives you things to look for when purchasing a green or sustainable product.

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A recent piece of writing I had read in a Turkish newspaper reveals it all about a personal greenwash. The Stockholm correspondent of this newspaper had sent an article about the poshness of being green in the Swedish capital, in which she told how “in” it was to go down on the street, to the recycling bin, and finally to recycle your waste, and let everyone see you during the process.

While that seems to be the case in Western Europe, one would find it really difficult to hold onto a green lifestyle in Turkey, since there is a huge lack of awareness of the issue. However, as careless are the businesses and people in Turkey about sustainability, a newcomer to the UK might get just as tired of seeing so many words like green, eco, sustainable, etc. It’s big business here.
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