Are you getting stuck developing new green products or services? Do you think of sustainability as a barrier to design? Did you realize that sustainability – far from being a barrier – can actually be a powerful catalyst for innovation and growth? No?
Well, on November 1, 2012 Sustainable Silicon Valley conducted a 3-hour Design for Sustainability Workshop to put these ideas into practice. This hands-on event, sponsored by Sustainable Silicon Valley and hosted by Silver Spring Networks, was led by Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, Marianna Grossman, President of Sustainable Silicon Valley and Phil Metz, Top Dog at SingingDog, with additional facilitation support by Christine Kohl-Zaugg of BluBubble.
Conducted in two series of breakout sessions, the workshop provided participants with the opportunity to experiment hands-on with multiple advanced design for sustainability techniques, including:
- Cradle to Cradle
- Natural Step
- Radical Resource Efficiency
- Dematerialization and Transforming Products Into Services
- Biomimicry
- Sustainability as a Competitive Advantage
The outcome? Some comments from workshop participants:
- “The summary of multiple sustainable design techniques and concepts was valuable. The diversity of talks and discussion helped provide perspective.”
- “There was a lot of creativity and innovation in the room, something I can take back to work.”
- “Maintaining the customer focus helped us develop solutions requiring radically less energy.”
- “I liked the idea of designing a product from multiple perspectives.”
- “Dematerialization is great!”
- “Our output is something we all feel proud of.”
- “Sustainability as competitive advantage is an important new concept to me.”
Want to learn more? Contact Phil Metz Senior Advisor to Sustainable Silicon Valley, pmetz@sustainablesv.org, +1-408-821-8059.