How to Stop Greenwashing for Designers (LCA)

[@vasifvali3673]

Excellent video! 👌 It’s great to see design videos that focus on sustainability, especially the role of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a key tool for quantitatively evaluating the environmental impact of products and services. I was initially looking for resources on industrial design, and seeing LCA mentioned here was a pleasant surprise as a sustainability professional!

[@mitchgoldstein6720]

Great video! More sustainable industrial design please! It is something I'm very interested in as a student about to graduate

[@marsmanic1666]

Great video. I will say, as a product designer we have to understand 'why' a company might make specific changes, for example, working on a project recently. To achieve UL certification / IEC CB certification the materials used were required to be UL94 rated to atleast V1, many materials available could only achieve this at 3mm thick - where as the optimal thickness would have been 1.5 - 2mm range, even though the fire risk of the product was extremely low, it's where approvals have actually pushed us to be less sustainable. Same with the use of environmentally friendly polymers, if they aren't UL Yellow Card then you'll have a bad time trying to get into the US market.

[@alexx7910]

Wow, I just discovered your videos and I can't thank you enough! Love your no generic talk and straightforwardness.

[@miguelderoo7445]

Great video again! Love how you bring interesting topics by creating an example and adding a touch of humor 👌

[@somegraythings]

Thanks!

[@martynapiasciak9764]

Super important topic, but how to do an actual calculation? Where could I find verified information about carbon footprint of each material (is it like a x CO2 per 1kg of the material)? What about the CO2 footprint of sourcing, production etc?

[@samoz2856]

Nice video! The one thing I’ll say on calculating the life cycle is increasing the estimated usage time doesn’t necessarily translate as well as you’ve shown it. Products, especially like chargers and other electronics, typically have a lower life cycle mostly from the evolution of tech and actual usability. Looking at a 12 or even 6 year life cycle isn’t usually realistic when rating actual consumer usage. 3 years is a better number to base it on. Wish it wasn’t so! Either way, love your content and keep it going 👌👌 Oh and one other idea would be making it upgradable or changeable. Having replaceable batteries is a good start but I wonder if it could be made to keep the original case but upgrade or update the internal contents so it can evolve with humanity. Imagine having products that evolve over time like this (kind of like PC cases. You can always upgrade the RAM, GPU, memory, etc but have the same computer case for decades)

[@somegraythings]

Good call! Yep, this is totally based on a lot of assumptions. I think the length of time people use this thing if more of a normal curve, with most people using it X number of years but some people use it less, some more. It would be interesting to dive into data about how long people actually use things to get some more realistic numbers here. In the design I put a snap in cover for the electronics that would theoretically be easy to get into. But more analysis would have made this video even linger to make 😅, although I think you have a good point.

[@simonmayer5083]

hey, I really love your videos for their easy vibe :) you explain and do complex things without selling it as rocket science! I wanted to ask: what kind of software do you use on your iPad - you seem to model CAD AND render on it? :)

[@Rodrigo-RdR]

Great vid, love it. Make me think.

[@syw569]

What app are you using to demonstrate the rendering of the product? That looks very practical.

[@Peter-bk4pz]

I am curious to know what kind of program you used for your LCA. Or is this already embedded in the render programs you used.

[@valentyn_154]

Very nice video 👌. Is it a project you did for a client ?

[@somegraythings]

No, just screwing around :)

[@Techne89]

This can actual good usage of ai for designers . Help me to do forcast and flex. Maybe I am overthinking, as I worked with some nerdy excel experts . Iam sure we can have coolexcel file to save…

[@somegraythings]

Good idea!

[@loganwhittlesey3094]

what render engine is that on his ipad? Is it an app or a website?

[@design.dmitri]

then comes the sales management and demands the product line has to be refreshed every 3 years, customers must be forced to buy our new products more frequently and it’s not negotiable, sustainability is cheaper outsourced to the marketing department.

[@bradleykurtz2605]

Equating all production to damage is a might misanthropic.

[@randomstuffz365]

Apple series plssss !!!! or X-Ray Style

[@MahfuzurRahman19]

Nice video but I feel like it's too optimistic. I'm not a product designer but Who is going to keep using a power bank for 12years? It's gonna look like a scuffed up piece of metal in about 3years of use, and it's gonna get worse every year. The electronics also have to be reliable enough to go that far (which usually drives up the price as well as the carbon emission). I'm probably nit picking but these are some things to think about.

[@danielhahn55]

Actually I think it works well. I've had my powerbanks for 5 and 7 years now respectively. Yes they look worked up, but who cares? It's not a fashion piece, or at least that's my opinion. My advice (and I am a product engineer) would be to make the casing of stainless steel, which is more durable and also cheaper financially as well as ecologically (especially if the steel mill already uses hydrogen for smelting, but even if not). The USB-C connectors will live for ages, so the only further improvement would be to A) make the electronics and plastic part separable And B) publish 3D printing files for the plastic part, to reduce the impact of shipping when upgrading or repairing.

[@somegraythings]

@danielhahn55 this are some great point and I really like you comments. The design was an extrusion, so AL seemed like a good choice. Super curious on your experience with stainless and custom extrusion?

[@somegraythings]

@MahfuzurRahman19 great points! I was thinking at least raw AL can be polished back to a new look, although maybe that’s a bit too optimistic to think someone would do that 😅

[@danielhahn55]

@somegraythings thank you so much! Well I admit that custom stainless extrusion might be challenging, as it's not the most ductile material. I'd rather have a flat piece which gets bent around pins with the appropriate diameter, then laser-welded and polished flush. Didn't take those extra steps into account LCA-wise bit they'll still have less impact than using AL

[@somegraythings]

@danielhahn55 definitely, good thinking