Industrial design trend of green design (on)

Abstract Under the influence of the traditional concept of social development, industrial design has centered on “people” and has become an important medium and catalyst for encouraging unrestrained and arbitrary consumption of people, causing irreparable catastrophic damage to the global environment. It is in this context that governments and designers from all over the world have begun to rethink the historical mission of industrial design in the new century under the guidance of the concept of sustainable development, which has led to a new design trend in the design community - green. The emergence of the "Green Design" trend of thought. Green design is an international industrial design trend that emerged in the late 1980s. It is a reflection of global environment protection strategies, industrial restructuring, environmental and ecological damage caused by modern science and technology culture, and designer morality. The product of the return of social responsibility and responsibility is to protect the environment, save energy and maintain the ecological balance of the earth. The basic idea of ​​green design is to change from a "people-oriented" design view to considering both human needs and ecological systems. In the design conception phase, environmental factors are incorporated into the design, and environmental performance is taken as the product's design goal and starting point. Strive to minimize the impact of the product on the environment. The core of green design can be summarized as "3R", namely Reduce, Recycle and Reuse. When an industrial designer conducts a green design practice, he can start from several aspects such as choosing green materials, implementing green packaging, using green energy, and using green manufacturing.

Keywords: green design industrial design sustainable development

The origin of a green design

In the long history of human design, especially in parallel with the history of industrial design in the world, fuel automobiles, electric machinery, chemical industry and traditional steel have become the main technical means for people's life and production. These technical means are combined with the production methods of socialized large-scale production. Under the slogan of “people-oriented”, they have created a comfortable, convenient, and quick modern lifestyle and living environment for people, but inevitably accelerated the use of natural resources, The consumption of energy and the pollution to the environment have caused unprecedented damage to the ecological balance of the earth. In addition, the over-commercialization of industrial design has made design an important medium and catalyst for encouraging unrestrained and arbitrary consumption. In the early 20th century, the United States advocated a “planned abolition of merchandise” as an extreme manifestation of this phenomenon. So much so that people say that industrial design (especially advertising design) is the chief culprit that encourages people to transition consumption, and it has caused many criticisms and censures. It is against this background that governments and designers in various countries have begun to rethink the historical mission and role orientation of industrial design in the new century. As a result, a new design has emerged in the design world: the Green Design trend of thought. appear.

Green design is an international industrial design trend that emerged in the late 1980s. It is a calm reflection of environmental and ecological damage caused by modern science and technology culture. The product of the return of morality and social responsibility.

Green design is a design method (also called a design concept) that gradually emerged with the birth of the concept of “green product”. In the 1970s, the U.S. government first proposed the concept of Green Product when it drafted an environmental pollution bill. Green products, also known as Environmental Conscious Products (ECP), refer to environmental protection requirements in the product life cycle, minimal harm to the ecological environment and human body, minimal use of resources, high resource utilization, and energy Low consumption products.

The true green product was born in the former Federal Republic of Germany. In 1987, the country implemented a program called “Blue Sky Envoyment.” The Environmental Labeling Committee awarded the product a green mark for products that meet environmental protection requirements during production and use and that have no harm to the ecological environment and human health. A generation of green flags). Subsequently, Japan, the United States, Canada and other countries have also established their own green certification system to ensure that consumers identify the nature of the product's environmental protection, while encouraging manufacturers to produce low-pollution green products. China has also started to implement the “Green Mark” work since 1994. Up to now, 35 categories of 35 products including low-fluorine household refrigerators, unleaded gasoline, and non-phosphorus washing powder have obtained the “Green Mark”. The green mark certification can protect the environmental interests of various countries in accordance with international practice, and at the same time it is also conducive to promoting enterprises to increase their competitiveness in the international market.

From the perspective of the history of industrial design in the world, Victor Papanek, the American design theorist, has a direct influence on the emergence of green design. In the late 1960s, he published a monograph entitled "Design For the Real World" that caused great controversy at the time. The book pointed out that the greatest role of design is not to create commercial value, nor is it a competition in packaging and style, but an integral part of the process of social change. As a designer, we should seriously use limited earth resources and pay attention to protection. Earth environment. By the 1970s, the large-scale "energy crisis" broke out, and Babbanak's "limited resources theory" began to gain universal recognition. Green design has gradually received more and more attention and recognition from people.

So what exactly is green design? Different people in different countries still have different understandings of it, as well as different names and definitions. Green Design is also called Ecological Design, Sustainable Design, etc. The basic idea is to move from a “people-oriented” design concept to consider both human needs and ecological systems. In the design conception phase, environmental factors are incorporated into the design, and environmental performance is taken as the product's design goal and starting point in order to minimize the impact of the product on the environment. For industrial design: the core of green design is “3R”, ie, Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, not only to reduce the consumption of substances and energy, to reduce the emission of harmful substances, but also to make it easy to classify and recycle products and their components. Recycling cycle or reuse; ecological design is also called life cycle design, that is, the use of ecological thinking, give priority to the product's environmental attributes in the product life cycle, in addition to considering the product's performance, quality and cost, but also consider the product Recovery and processing. Sustainable design involves more aspects, such as the future development of the nation and the nation and the development of future generations sharing limited resources with it, how to reduce the impact on the entire planet while ensuring product functionality. This article does not distinguish between these three concepts, and integrates both ecological design and sustainable design into the connotation and content of green design.

Second, the ideological foundation of green design - the concept of sustainable development

(I) Traditional Development Concept

Regardless of whether he is conscious or not, any designer will inevitably be influenced to a certain extent by mainstream ideas at the time. At the same time, his creative work will also have a certain influence on these concepts. Various design methods before the emergence of the green design trend are bound to be limited and restricted by the traditional concept of social development.

The traditional concept of development has experienced two historical stages. In the first stage, the development concept of “development is growth” from the mid 1940s to the mid-1960s. In these two decades, it was people who came out of the shadow of the Second World War and were full of hopes and hopes for the future society. All countries in the world regard post-war reconstruction and restoration of economic development as their primary task, thereby simply equating economic growth with economic development and ignoring the overall progress of people and society. Accordingly, the growth of GDP is regarded as a measure of the economic and social development of a country and a region. The core measure of development and ignoring human, resource, and environmental indicators simply treat the natural world as the object of human survival and development while ignoring the fact that nature is the foundation on which humankind depends on for survival and development. The second stage was the "comprehensive development concept" from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. Under the influence of the "development-and-growth" concept of development in the first phase, many countries, especially developing countries, have experienced "malignant growth" with "no growth and no development" -- a high annual growth rate in the economic field. However, it has paid a huge price: waste of resources, environmental pollution, ecological imbalances, and people's living standards and quality have not been correspondingly increased along with economic growth, and even there has been serious polarization and social unrest. In this era, people began to realize that the development of a country, in addition to economic indicators, should also include various other social indicators. From 1960 to 1973, the United States took the lead in proposing the establishment of a new concept of development including social, economic, cultural, environmental, and life indicators. In October 1970, at the conference marking the 25th anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Charter, it was first proposed that "the ultimate goal of development must be to continuously improve the welfare of the individual and make all people benefit." In 1983, the French scholar F. Peruz summarized the new concept of development in the book “The New Development Outlook”: this concept of development is overall, comprehensive, and endogenous. The comprehensive development concept has broadened people's understanding and understanding of the connotation of development and began to emerge from the extremes that emphasize economic development while ignoring others.

The traditional concept of development has a profound impact on industrial design. It leads to the traditional theory and method of industrial design taking “people” as the center, only from the technical and economic factors such as market consumption demand, product quality, cost, and feasibility of manufacturing technology. Starting to meet people's various needs and solving people's problems, but ignoring the follow-up development of the entire society, over-consumption of earth resources and energy, destruction of nature, leading to ecological imbalances in the design, production, consumption process.

(B) New Industrial Design Guiding Ideology - The Proposition of "Sustainable Development Concept"

Since the 60s and 70s of the 20th century, various social pollution problems have come one after another. The energy crisis has become more and more serious. People have come to realize that environmental problems and ecological destruction are irreversible, and that economic, social, and environmental conditions are separated to seek development. It can bring catastrophic disaster to the earth and human society. From this sense of crisis, the concept of sustainable development was gradually formed in the 1980s. In 1980, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature used the concept of "sustainable development" for the first time in its "Outline for the Conservation of the World". In November of the same year, the United Nations established the World Commission on Environment and Development (WECD). In 1987, entrusted by the United Nations, WECD members headed by Mr. Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway, submitted to the United Nations General Assembly the report “A Common Future” after four years of research and full demonstration. The concept of "Sustainable Development". The report pointed out that "sustainable development" is a kind of "development that meets the needs of the contemporary people and does not jeopardize the needs of future generations to meet their needs." It is a comprehensive dynamic concept involving economy, society, culture, technology, and the natural environment. Theoretically, the relationship between the development of the economy and the protection of the environment and the earth's resources is clearly defined. In 1991, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Conservation Union and the World Wildlife Fund in their joint publication "Protection of the Earth" defined sustainable development as "Human life in a sustainable and good ecological environment. At the same time, we must improve the quality of human life." In this definition, the "sustainability" of development is explicitly proposed. In 1992, the global summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to hold the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The meeting adopted Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. It regards sustainable development as a common development strategy for the future and has won different economies around the world. The universal recognition of countries at different levels and different cultural backgrounds. When China put forward its future development goals in 2002, it also explicitly proposed that “the capacity for sustainable development will continue to increase, the ecological environment will be improved, the efficiency of resource utilization will be significantly improved, the harmony between man and nature will be promoted, and the entire society will be promoted to production and development.