This is a great video to describe all the stages in a product’s lifecycle and potential options for improvement at each stage. However, it’s missing an evidence based approach to identify what the most damaging lifecycle stages or processes are, and a methodical approach to tackle them. As designers our time is limited and intuition flawed. One common example of this is focusing a lot of time on transport, trying to minimise the supply chain distance when it might only make up 5% of your total emissions, or making design decisions that actively make the product worse from a sustainability perspective (using mineral and energy intensive metals over comparatively low carbon plastics, even though there's no intention to recycle) The current best way to not fall in those holes (outside of not designing it at all) is to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) to identify the most impactful life cycle stages, processes or materials based on an initial design or an existing baseline. After that initial LCA, we can start making tweaks to our design and lifecycle to see if improvements are made. For instance we may find electricity during use is the most damaging bit, so you’d likely avoid wireless charging entirely or use a custom coil to improve transfer efficiency (as opposed to an OEM coil, unoptimised for our design and materials) You’ll find the impact changes of each iteration are quite nuanced, with an improvement in one area resulting in another area worsening (e.g plastic is more harmful than cork when put in landfill, but likely uses far less land and water to make it). There are models to help you "weight" how important these impact categories are (the main one being ReCiPe). Ultimately, we still have to use our judgement on those weightings, but at least there's more backing to it
Nice video. My impact on the environment was one of my first thoughts when I started working as an Industrial Designer recently. It’s definitely something that randomly just pops in your head “am I the asshole??”
Love your videos! I'm also learning so much from your sustainable material LinkedIn posts. Thank you for all this knowledge sharing! Keep it up Gray 👏👏👏
I have brought a lot of hardware products to life and have been deeply involved in manufacturing and sourcing. here are a few thoughts that come to my mind: 1. aluminum is extremely energy intensive to produce and while some countries use hydro power to feed the smelters, hydro is green but unscalable so i would consider aluminum not very environmental overall 2. the lower half of the enclosure would likely need to be milled on a CNC machine which would leave a lot of waste material. recycling the leftovers would suffer from #1. Overall, I think it would be better to use recycled/reclaimed fishnets, biodegradable injection moulded plastics or even wood. there are some emerging bioplastics made from fungi and recycled rabbits or something like that. I feel these would deserve a video of their own 3. the nuts glued in the cork are a bit against the philosophy of easily separable materials, but I don't really have a better suggestion aside from switching to a different material 4. probably also make sure that the product would even work and work efficiently. you seem to add a thick cork layer between the coil and the phone. wireless power losses over distance are quadratic or something like that. if your design even worked, the power efficiency might be like units of percent
awesome notes but i have a few questions. 1. you mentioned aluminum not environmental friendly, but yet its widely considered a good recyclable option. is it just the production of the aluminum you'd consider harmful? 2. i can see a part like this being die cast or cast in another way to avoid the problems that cnc milling bring. i also see the possibility for deep drawing with some simple adjustments. would these production techniques improve the sustainability overall? for points 3 and 4 you make some valid points i love the use of cork but its really hard to use without gluing. and id say point 4 would prove itself in a testing phase ran before production
@@scottgerrese1502 1. you are right it's recyclable. it's just that you need to melt it and the energy required for that is high. i also don't know the exact percentage content a recycled aluminum can be used in products or how many recycling cycles the metal allows 2. die casting is definitely a much more environmental option in terms of waste. I have seen and done some aluminium casting, but the surfaces were not super ideal (can't say whether better molds or equipment could solve that). we had to do electroplating, which is might not be the most environmental process either (it's a batch of some acids through which you run electrical current to increase oxidization). I have had overall better results with extrusion. overall, PMs should engage industrial designers, mechanical engineers and production engineers into product ideation and early design iterations. this can help avoid finding obvious issues before engineering, testing-validation phases. I have seen too many cases where a stubborn industrial designer tries to push his "amazing product vision" through engineering wishing that laws of nature won't apply or that obvious problems magically disappear. My rule of thumb that each phase of hardware product development is 10x more expensive than the preceding so best to tackle issues early. your comment is really insightful, share more about how you would approach it. I might always be wrong or pursue a suboptimal suggestion
Really nice video - introduction to sustainable design. May ask though a question regarding the cork material, opposed to using for example, recycled plastic, or even plastic (that can be recycled). Cork, is mainly produced in Portugal, right? The electronic device will be, most likely produced in China. Then, cork has to be shipped to China. I have no metrics, I just wonder, would it be more "sustainable" to use plastic (that will be recycled later), that most likely the supplier is next door to the manufacturer's site, than sourcing a green material from the other side of the planet? By no means do I question you , it is genuine question I have as a product designer from Europe, working in the tech industry in Asia. Also, I have designed plastic chairs. People tend to think that a recycled plastic chair is more "green" than a plastic chair made by first-time-used-plastic-material. But a recycled plastic chair is much more weak, as the recycled plastic is a weaker material. In addition, plastic material, cannot be recycled more than 1-2 times (depending its type). The best strategy, as you mentioned, is minimum or/and responsible consumption. Then, however, our financial system will collapse...
Nice overview video. There are a ton of paths to walk when it comes to sustainable design. Goal setting with orgs is a first great initial step. Wireless charging is notoriously inefficient, so there’s that. Cork availability is dwindling, so I would’ve spec’d reclaimed cork, or even better, a bamboo maybe? Aluminum is a super solid choice as more than 70% is still in circulation and will most likely be a reclaimed aluminum in one way or another. The fasteners you used were a decent choice, I would’ve used shorter ones and not pulled the cork upper down into the aluminum cavity as far. Come to think of it, maybe a PLA would’ve been a good choice for the upper housing but I’d have to check the LCA tool I use by, Sustainable Minds. Check that out. I’m sure you’d get some good info off there. I think the largest challenge with designers designing green products is their own lack of education around the topic. ;) cheers.
Very nice video. I love when someone can deliver relevant information with good light humor. Something that's very relevant also is the manufacturing process used on the material. A injected aluminum part uses a lot mor energy to produce than a stamp molded one, for example. That's an interesting topic.
Cool video! But, choosing material requires more factors. For example wireless charger will generate heat and adding wood on top not only makes it hotter, but can put it on fire. Recycled plastics I see as more practical choice.
I also thought of that as well but didn’t go into it. I thought of designing in a heat sink into the aluminum, but then I thought that was a but overkill for a TH-cam concept 😅
Yet cork - the material selected for the wireless charger in this video - differently from wood, is a great thermal insulator and a very poor heat conductor. Renewable and recyclable, I think it was an excellent choice to convey to topic.
I really appreciate these points and I'll keep them in mind in the future. Thanks so much for taking the time to make something simple but also thought provoking like this !
Hey, your content is super informative, and as a design student extremely inspiring, can I ask you what program you use for your 3D models on the Ipad, do you stream it via software or is there a specific program you use?
Nice video, it looks like the size of the charger suggested a smaller casing and also the packaging could have been optimised ? You already had one "eco material" aluminium, so you could reduce the number of processes and that will reduce the number of suppliers and logistics involved. Interesting process for sustainability design. We need more guidelines like this.
7 หลายเดือนก่อน +1
Thank you always for this great video!! I would really love to know what kind of app are you using on your ipad!!
This is a great video to describe all the stages in a product’s lifecycle and potential options for improvement at each stage. However, it’s missing an evidence based approach to identify what the most damaging lifecycle stages or processes are, and a methodical approach to tackle them.
As designers our time is limited and intuition flawed. One common example of this is focusing a lot of time on transport, trying to minimise the supply chain distance when it might only make up 5% of your total emissions, or making design decisions that actively make the product worse from a sustainability perspective (using mineral and energy intensive metals over comparatively low carbon plastics, even though there's no intention to recycle)
The current best way to not fall in those holes (outside of not designing it at all) is to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) to identify the most impactful life cycle stages, processes or materials based on an initial design or an existing baseline. After that initial LCA, we can start making tweaks to our design and lifecycle to see if improvements are made. For instance we may find electricity during use is the most damaging bit, so you’d likely avoid wireless charging entirely or use a custom coil to improve transfer efficiency (as opposed to an OEM coil, unoptimised for our design and materials)
You’ll find the impact changes of each iteration are quite nuanced, with an improvement in one area resulting in another area worsening (e.g plastic is more harmful than cork when put in landfill, but likely uses far less land and water to make it). There are models to help you "weight" how important these impact categories are (the main one being ReCiPe). Ultimately, we still have to use our judgement on those weightings, but at least there's more backing to it
A wireless charger is incredibly energy inefficient and wasteful. Cool video though!
Nice video. My impact on the environment was one of my first thoughts when I started working as an Industrial Designer recently. It’s definitely something that randomly just pops in your head “am I the asshole??”
I vibe with this comment so hard :)
im just a prospective id student but i thought abt this too, like am i gonna design smth profitable but kills the planet?
Love your videos! I'm also learning so much from your sustainable material LinkedIn posts. Thank you for all this knowledge sharing! Keep it up Gray 👏👏👏
Thanks for your support :)
I have brought a lot of hardware products to life and have been deeply involved in manufacturing and sourcing. here are a few thoughts that come to my mind:
1. aluminum is extremely energy intensive to produce and while some countries use hydro power to feed the smelters, hydro is green but unscalable so i would consider aluminum not very environmental overall
2. the lower half of the enclosure would likely need to be milled on a CNC machine which would leave a lot of waste material. recycling the leftovers would suffer from #1. Overall, I think it would be better to use recycled/reclaimed fishnets, biodegradable injection moulded plastics or even wood. there are some emerging bioplastics made from fungi and recycled rabbits or something like that. I feel these would deserve a video of their own
3. the nuts glued in the cork are a bit against the philosophy of easily separable materials, but I don't really have a better suggestion aside from switching to a different material
4. probably also make sure that the product would even work and work efficiently. you seem to add a thick cork layer between the coil and the phone. wireless power losses over distance are quadratic or something like that. if your design even worked, the power efficiency might be like units of percent
awesome notes but i have a few questions.
1. you mentioned aluminum not environmental friendly, but yet its widely considered a good recyclable option. is it just the production of the aluminum you'd consider harmful?
2. i can see a part like this being die cast or cast in another way to avoid the problems that cnc milling bring. i also see the possibility for deep drawing with some simple adjustments. would these production techniques improve the sustainability overall?
for points 3 and 4 you make some valid points i love the use of cork but its really hard to use without gluing. and id say point 4 would prove itself in a testing phase ran before production
@@scottgerrese1502
1. you are right it's recyclable. it's just that you need to melt it and the energy required for that is high. i also don't know the exact percentage content a recycled aluminum can be used in products or how many recycling cycles the metal allows
2. die casting is definitely a much more environmental option in terms of waste. I have seen and done some aluminium casting, but the surfaces were not super ideal (can't say whether better molds or equipment could solve that). we had to do electroplating, which is might not be the most environmental process either (it's a batch of some acids through which you run electrical current to increase oxidization). I have had overall better results with extrusion.
overall, PMs should engage industrial designers, mechanical engineers and production engineers into product ideation and early design iterations. this can help avoid finding obvious issues before engineering, testing-validation phases. I have seen too many cases where a stubborn industrial designer tries to push his "amazing product vision" through engineering wishing that laws of nature won't apply or that obvious problems magically disappear. My rule of thumb that each phase of hardware product development is 10x more expensive than the preceding so best to tackle issues early.
your comment is really insightful, share more about how you would approach it. I might always be wrong or pursue a suboptimal suggestion
Really nice video - introduction to sustainable design. May ask though a question regarding the cork material, opposed to using for example, recycled plastic, or even plastic (that can be recycled). Cork, is mainly produced in Portugal, right? The electronic device will be, most likely produced in China. Then, cork has to be shipped to China. I have no metrics, I just wonder, would it be more "sustainable" to use plastic (that will be recycled later), that most likely the supplier is next door to the manufacturer's site, than sourcing a green material from the other side of the planet?
By no means do I question you , it is genuine question I have as a product designer from Europe, working in the tech industry in Asia.
Also, I have designed plastic chairs. People tend to think that a recycled plastic chair is more "green" than a plastic chair made by first-time-used-plastic-material. But a recycled plastic chair is much more weak, as the recycled plastic is a weaker material. In addition, plastic material, cannot be recycled more than 1-2 times (depending its type).
The best strategy, as you mentioned, is minimum or/and responsible consumption. Then, however, our financial system will collapse...
Nice overview video. There are a ton of paths to walk when it comes to sustainable design. Goal setting with orgs is a first great initial step. Wireless charging is notoriously inefficient, so there’s that. Cork availability is dwindling, so I would’ve spec’d reclaimed cork, or even better, a bamboo maybe? Aluminum is a super solid choice as more than 70% is still in circulation and will most likely be a reclaimed aluminum in one way or another. The fasteners you used were a decent choice, I would’ve used shorter ones and not pulled the cork upper down into the aluminum cavity as far. Come to think of it, maybe a PLA would’ve been a good choice for the upper housing but I’d have to check the LCA tool I use by, Sustainable Minds. Check that out. I’m sure you’d get some good info off there. I think the largest challenge with designers designing green products is their own lack of education around the topic. ;) cheers.
Very nice video. I love when someone can deliver relevant information with good light humor.
Something that's very relevant also is the manufacturing process used on the material. A injected aluminum part uses a lot mor energy to produce than a stamp molded one, for example. That's an interesting topic.
Cool video! But, choosing material requires more factors. For example wireless charger will generate heat and adding wood on top not only makes it hotter, but can put it on fire. Recycled plastics I see as more practical choice.
I also thought of that as well but didn’t go into it. I thought of designing in a heat sink into the aluminum, but then I thought that was a but overkill for a TH-cam concept 😅
Yet cork - the material selected for the wireless charger in this video - differently from wood, is a great thermal insulator and a very poor heat conductor. Renewable and recyclable, I think it was an excellent choice to convey to topic.
I really appreciate these points and I'll keep them in mind in the future. Thanks so much for taking the time to make something simple but also thought provoking like this !
Hey, your content is super informative, and as a design student extremely inspiring,
can I ask you what program you use for your 3D models on the Ipad, do you stream it via software or is there a specific program you use?
Nice video, it looks like the size of the charger suggested a smaller casing and also the packaging could have been optimised ? You already had one "eco material" aluminium, so you could reduce the number of processes and that will reduce the number of suppliers and logistics involved.
Interesting process for sustainability design. We need more guidelines like this.
Thank you always for this great video!! I would really love to know what kind of app are you using on your ipad!!
I’ll put it in the description
hi! can you talk about the manufacturing process, prototyping, looking for suppliers, etc.? :3
Can I get a link to the paper?
aodr.org/xml/10555/10555.pdf
Nice content and video quality! a bit of topic, but what camera and mic are you using?
Mic is the Babbl USB microphone that I designed :) camera is a sony zv e10
"promo sm"