If Products Could February 1 2010 B

IF PRODUCTS COULD TELL THEIR STORIES
TOWARDS A MODEL OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
JEN VAN DER MEER
NYU ITP
WEEK 2: FEBRUARY 1, 2009

RECALLED 1_26_2009 2009-2010 RAV4 2009-2010 Corolla 2009-2010 Matrix 2005-2010 Avalon 2007-2010 Camry 2010 Highlander 2007-2010 Tundra 2008-2010 Sequoia

RECALLED 1_27_2010 (Risk of Laceration or Finger Amputation) 2009-2010 RAV4 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix 2005-2010 Avalon 2007-2010 Camry 2010 Highlander 2007-2010 Tundra 2008-2010 Sequoia

RECALLED 1_28_2010 (Starbucks Water Bottle: Risk of Laceration)

1_30_2009 CPSC CONSIDERS DELAY, BUT PTHALATES IN CHILDREN’s TOYS BANNED AS OF FEB 10, 2009

EMPORER PENGUINS FACE EXTINCTION BY END OF CENTURY

NEWS WHICH DOESN’T BODE WELL FOR THESE GUYS

HOMEWORK: LCA

TODAY’S FOCUS: THE CONSUMER’S ROLE IN REVERSING THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS: _Population x Consumption _Need vs. want _Spimes _What consumers say, what they do _Ethnography _Examples, ideas

POPULATION x CONSUMPTION “ Over some 60 million years, Homo sapiens has evolved into the dominant animal on the planet, acquiring binocular vision, upright posture, large brains, and — most importantly — language with syntax and that complex store of non-genetic information we call culture. However, in the last several centuries we’ve increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth — in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored during ice ages, and its biodiversity — as if there were no tomorrow.” _Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb

POPULATION x CONSUMPTION “ Too many people are under the delusion that such a disastrous end to the modern human enterprise can be avoided by technological fixes that will allow the population and the economy to grow forever. The point, all too often ignored, is that this trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it cannot be long continued without risking a collapse of our now-global civilization.” _Paul Ehrlich, updated: The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment

POPULATION x CONSUMPTION http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmEosykOesE _Mike Hanauer of Zero Population Growth

NEED vs. WANT 35 percent of Americans surveyed aspired to reach the top 6 percent of the income distribution, and another 49 percent aspired to the next 12 percent. Only 15 percent reported that they would be satisfied with "living a comfortable life"-that is, being middle class. But 85 percent of the population cannot earn the six-figure incomes necessary to support upper-middle-class lifestyles. Susan Fournier and Michael Guiry, University of Florida, 1991. The result is a growing aspirational gap: with desires persistently outrunning incomes, many consumers find themselves frustrated.

NEED vs. WANT Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today, in the midst of economic calamity, to ask if we really should be gathered here today, in a funhouse of merchandise designed to send us deeper into debt. NY Times. Feb 1, 2009. “Our Love Affair With Malls is on the Rocks”

NEED vs. WANT

NEED vs. WANT The bulk of green product innovation has been focused on the power of the purse to “drive the business case” for green. VOTING WITH YOUR WALLET. Green consumers are known to pay a premium for the purity of the objects they are seeking, and businesses have lined up to appeal to this desire, and reap the high margin returns. What are the contradictions of green consumption?

LEVERS OF CHANGE: WHAT IS TH GOAL OF THIS SYSTEM? BUYING. Consumer spending now accounts for two-thirds of global economic activity. USING. The “use” phase of a product lifecycle is often the phase that provides the greatest environmental impact or harm, to the earth and to its creatures. DISPOSING/RECYCLING: Americans recycled and composted 85 Million tons of the 253 Million tons of total municipal solid waste produced in 2007.

SPIMES 1. New forms of design and manufacture are appearing that create novelty. 2. The production methods are not sustainable. The status quo uses archaic forms of energy and materials which are finite and toxic. They wreck the climate, poison the populace, and forment resource wars. They have no future. Challenge: guide the vectors of #1 so as to finesse the consequences of #2.

SHAPING THINGS Artifacts . Man made, man operated. Machines . Complex artifacts that have a non-man, non-animal energy source. Products . Widely distributed commercially available objects, manufactrered in large quantities. Gizmos . Highly unstable, user alterable, baroquely multifeatured objects, commonly programmable, with a brief lifespan. Spimes . Manufactured objects who begin and end as data. Information melded to sustainability.

SHAPING THINGS Effective intervention takes place not in the human, not in the object, but in the realm of the technosocial . There’s not enough time in the world for people to sacrifice infinite amounts of opportunity and cognition. This means that in a Spime world, designers must design, not just for objects or people but for the technosocial interactions that unite people and objects .

SHAPING THINGS When the entire industrial process is made explicit , when the metrics count for more than the object they measure, then Gizmo become Spimes.

SO THEN: Consumer behavior is a lever of change. The “ use ” phase of a product lifecycle is often the phase with the highest impact environmentally. So then… we will change the world by creating Spimes, which will inform us how to use objects in a more effective way, and will tell us also when these objects are causing us harm .

BUT…
Why Ethical Concerns Are Rarely Taken Shopping:
Understanding the Intentions-Behaviour Gap of Ethically-Minded Consumers
AUTHORS: Michal Carrington Ben Neville Greg Whitwell
While increasing numbers of consumers have absorbed the values of ethical consumerism, a change in behaviour is far less evident.
Stated ethical intentions seldom translate into actual ethical buying behaviour (Auger& Devinney, 2007; Belk, Devinney, & Eckhardt, 2005; Carrigan & Attalla, 2001).
One recent study, for example, found that while 30% of consumers stated that they would purchase ethically, only 3% actually do (FUTERRA, 2005, p. 92).
Empirical studies in thefield of consumer behaviour more broadly suggest that purchase intentions do not translate literally into purchase behaviour (Morwitz, Steckel, & Gupta, 2007; Young, DeSarbo, &Morwitz, 1998).
It follows that predicting behaviour based on ethical purchasing intentions may be a pointless exercise as few ethically-minded consumers actually walk their talk. The data from the FUTERRA study (2005) suggest that models that predict ethical intentions lead directly to ethical behaviour will be wrong 90% of the time.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Implementation intentions: An implementation intention is an if/then plan formed by the individual that outlines when, where and how their intentions will be realised as actual behaviour (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
Actual behavioural control (Ajzen & Madden,1986; Sheeran, Trafimow, & Armitage, 2003): the capability of the individual to perform a given behaviour – i.e. the extent to which the performance of this behaviour isunder their (external) control and within their (internal) abilities.
Situational context (Belk, 1975): includes factors such as the physical marketing environment (e.g. product placement and promotional pricing) and the social surroundings (e.g. interaction with other people), amongst others.

WE’LL NEED SOME ETHNOGRAPHY Good behavior is often overstated in traditional query-focused research. Everyone flosses and exercises when asked. Gap between intention and action. What are the factors limiting change? _Price too high. _Too inconvenient. _Don’t want to compromise for a lower quality product. _Don’t trust green claims, no standards.

WHAT EXPLAINS GREEN BEHAVIOR? Rational choice vs. less-than-rational choice Individual self-determination vs. social conformation Internal values, attitudes, intentions vs. external antecedents such as incentives, social norms, institutional constraints

EXAMPLES OF DESIGNING FOR ETHICAL USE

Greenbox

Torture Me Elmo: Do Humanlike Machines Deserve Human Rights? Daniel Roth, Wired Magazine.

NEXT CLASS: Reading: Shopping our Way to Safety. Part II: Assembling a Personal Commodity Bubble for One’s Body, Chapters 3, 4, 5, pp. 97 – 168.

NEXT CLASS: Assignment: Shop for a product or meal with someone that fits the following “personas” – a) a parent wanted to product your 3 month old baby from toxins, b) a locavore who wants her meal to come from within a 100 mile radius of NY, or c) a self described greenie who wants every purchase they make to have the lowest environmental impact. As you make the effort to engage shopkeepers, retailers, manufacturers, and food sellers in conversation, what can you find out about how things are made? Blog about your findings.

If Products Could February 1 2010 B

by Jen van der Meer on Feb 01, 2010

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If Products Could February 1 2010 B — Presentation Transcript