International Workshop on Eco Design, Ljubljana 2011

Under today`s circumstances the pressure on environmental issues increases, while simultaneously we are facing the consequences of the economic and financial crisis. The question which arises from this situation is:

How can we design the products that surround us and the services that we use in a smarter way?

3 basic requirements for design can be formulated: #Design should ensure that there is no „inbuilt obsolescence“ in 1. products; #Design should ensure that there are no hidden toxics which our 2. children involuntarily and unknowingly inhale day after day; #Design should ensure that the products, after their “use phase” 3. is completed, become a healthy nutrient for further production processes;

All these demands meet in the Eco Design approach.

Ideally, Eco Design helps maximizing company’s profits via smarter use of precious and increasingly expensive natural resources, while making the products aesthetically appealing and thus supporting the companies to increase their market share.

But still, there are some hurdles to cross and a series of challenges to face. On one side we need to attract, educate and empower designers so that they will master the Eco Design approach and implement it into their practice. On the other side entrepreneurs need to be enlightened so they won`t hesitate to invest into new solutions that bring business, environmental and health/social benefits. Last but not least appropriate policies are necessary to enable this vision to flourish. They must ensure synergies between economy, science, culture and environment. Bringing all these elements together could lead us towards designing a closed loop economic system.