SMAD is an online platform that aims to promote sustainable lifestyles in Hong Kong and mainland China by sharing ideas and examples of sustainable daily activities, actions, and homemade goods. It was created by the School of Design at Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, along with environmental non-profits, to address issues like pollution and waste in cities by stimulating alternative approaches to consumption through design. The platform gathers and spreads cases of sustainable living to encourage social change around green lifestyles using open sharing on social media.

1. ‘SMAD’
Sustainable MAKE, ACT, DO
Promoters: School of Design, H.K. PolyU; HKWWA, EcoHome; FoE (HK)
City/ Country: Hong Kong, China
Keywords: Open-sharing; Social media; Consumption; Urban Lifestyle
Website: http://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/sldi/

2. CONTEXT:
Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and cities alike are
confronting serious environmental degradation. Air contamination,
water pollution and landfill saturation are commons to most of
these highly populated cities. Yet, urban Chinese are becoming
much resource-intensive. For instance, Hong Kong consumes
double the volume of water (172 m3 per capita) than those first
world cities like London and Paris; about 5000 new cars are sold
in Beijing daily; and over thousand tonnes of foods from
restaurants are wasted per day in Shanghai. While ‘unrestrained
consumption’ (driven partly by socio-cultural preferences) are
prevailing in urban China, sustainable lifestyle should be
stimulated via alternative approach and medium of design.

3. PROJECT:
‘SMAD’ (Sustainable MAKE, ACT, DO) is an online platform (open-
source portal) which aims to promote and stimulate social wide
action and change towards green consumption and lifestyle via
the amassment, dissemination and sharing of sustainable wits or
flaws of daily ACTING, DOING and MAKING among urban dwellers
in Hong Kong and mainland China.

4. Design Role:
Design plays a key roles here to (1) Envision alternative stimulations
and developmental paths for sustainable lifestyle; (2) Develop a
platform for cases gathering and dissemination; (3) Explore how
design ‘MAKING’ could be utilized as a strategy to drive eco-social
economy; (4) Lobby potential stakeholders and social media to
support & promote the platform; (5) Substantiate the platform’s impact
via launching featured cases (collected regionally by field research,
depth interviews and self-reporting.) and thematic social events.