Sustainable design is an approach that aims to minimize the environmental impact of products, buildings, and services throughout their entire life cycle. It integrates green materials and considers energy efficiency. Sustainable design places great importance on creating spaces that enhance user well-being and accessibility. By considering human-centric factors, designers can create environments that promote health.
Sustainable design is not just a trend but a vital approach to creating a harmonious balance between human needs and the health of our planet. Buildings significantly contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, and sustainable design requires renewable resources and innovation to minimize environmental impact and connect people with the natural world.
Climate change has significant impacts on various aspects of life, including indoor air quality and overall health. Building with responsible green materials also contributes to indoor air quality and overall health. Interior designer Caitlyn Davidian, NCIDQ, has found that views of nature through windows reduce employees’ heart rates and improve psychological well-being.
Sustainable design optimizes building performance and minimizes negative impacts on building occupants and the environment. It integrates environmental, social, and economic considerations to meet human needs while preserving the natural world for perpetuity. Sustainable materials have been proven to last longer, and the objective is to reduce waste and improve the health and well-being of society.
Green design, also known as environmentally conscious design, encourages relaxation and lowers anxiety, while being in green tones makes one feel peaceful. The built environment plays a significant role in building a healthier, more sustainable world, from combating climate change to improving human health.
📹 Are We the Last Generation — or the First Sustainable One? | Hannah Ritchie | TED
The word “sustainability” gets thrown around a lot these days. But what does it actually mean for humanity to be sustainable?
What is the goal of sustainable design?
Sustainable design aims to reduce environmental impacts and improve building performance by minimizing waste and consuming non-renewable resources. Principles of sustainable design include using low-impact materials, energy efficiency, quality and durability, and design for reuse and recycling. Products, processes, and systems should be designed for a commercial “afterlife” and should be replaced less frequently.
The LEED green building certification program encourages global adoption of sustainable green building practices through rating systems that recognize projects that implement strategies for better environmental and health performance. The LEED program recognizes projects that implement strategies for better environmental and health performance.
Why is being sustainability so important?
Sustainability is crucial for preserving our planet and natural resources, reducing pollution and protecting plant and animal habitats. Sustainable business practices and economic development, such as green technology and eco-friendly supply chains, contribute to a better quality of life. The concept of sustainability emerged from social justice, ecological conservation, and globalism in the late 20th century, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuels, ultimately benefiting individuals and communities. By adopting sustainable practices, we can create a ripple effect on individuals and communities, ultimately promoting a more sustainable future.
How does sustainable impact society?
Environmental sustainability aims to reduce negative externalities from human activities and live within natural ecosystems. Social sustainability focuses on maintaining long-term well-being through health, safety, education, and employment. Economic sustainability focuses on making operational profits and creating jobs for society’s citizens. The Venn diagram demonstrates that all three pillars must be present in a system for true sustainable development.
If only two elements are satisfied, the system will not be sustainable: economy and society lacks environmental protection, economy and environment lacks social equity, and society and environment lacks economical viability.
How does sustainability affect human resources?
Human resources (HR) leaders consider sustainability a priority because it directly affects the organization’s reputation, employee engagement, and long-term viability.
How does sustainability relate to human development?
Yanfen Wang emphasizes the importance of fairness to nature and other living beings in rearticulating human development. He suggests a balance between indigenous knowledge and modern science and technology to achieve sustainable human development. Wang’s work in China suggests that the general processes of human development, such as socioeconomic development, emancipative cultural change, and democratization and extension of civil rights, can lead to human activities focusing solely on what is needed, resulting in unsustainable human development. A good balance between indigenous knowledge and modern science and technology is crucial for achieving sustainable development.
How does sustainability affect our lives?
Sustainability is a holistic approach that improves our lives, protects our ecosystem, and preserves natural resources for future generations. In the corporate world, sustainability involves a holistic approach that considers everything from manufacturing to logistics to customer service. It maximizes the long-term benefits of environmental focus and ensures a future for all. Our actions have a significant long-term impact on future generations, and if we deplete Earth’s resources, we risk depleting the supply of all organisms in the food chain.
Sustainable business practices lead to reduced energy usage, with initiatives like switching to energy-efficient lighting and using solar and wind energy, along with energy-efficient equipment, reducing monthly utility bills. This reduction in energy consumption is beneficial for businesses as it helps them become more efficient overall. By embracing sustainability, we can ensure a safe and livable future for all, ensuring a sustainable future for all.
How does sustainable development impact our society?
Sustainable development has the potential to reduce poverty by improving access to basic needs like clean water, education, and healthcare. This can lift people out of poverty and enhance their quality of life. Sustainable development also fosters job creation in areas like renewable energy production, green building construction, waste management, and conservation science. Businesses that adopt sustainable practices can stimulate local economies by creating jobs and spending in the community, rather than importing goods from overseas.
How does sustainable design affect society?
Sustainable design is the integration of sustainability into the design process of products, services, and buildings to reduce waste and improve society’s health. It is also known as green design, environmentally conscious design, or eco-design. Sustainable design aims to deliver long-term solutions that minimize negative social and environmental impacts. The concept often involves three components: reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Reduced design reduces the need for new materials and energy consumption, reuses products or materials for reuse, and recycles them at the end of their lifecycle to create new products or biodegrade. This approach is driven by societal urgency to combat climate change and protect the environment for future generations.
Why is it important to have a sustainable design?
Sustainable design is a holistic approach that optimizes building performance, minimizes negative impacts on occupants and the environment, and incorporates energy efficiency principles into construction projects. It aims to maximize site potential, minimize non-renewable energy consumption, use environmentally friendly products, protect water, improve indoor air quality, enhance operational practices, and create healthy environments. Sustainable design encourages compromise and tradeoffs throughout a building’s life-cycle, ensuring a healthy and productive environment.
How does sustainability impact human lives?
Sustainable practices improve the quality of life for all by addressing issues like health, education, and equal opportunity. Improper waste management and poor water quality pose threats to human health and attract diseases. Sustainability ensures clean and safe communities. Social equity and environmental sustainability are interconnected, as communities with less wealth and power are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and climate change effects.
The US was the second-largest carbon emitter in 2021, producing 14. 86 tonnes per person. Living sustainably involves finding a balance between meeting needs and consuming less than one’s fair share. Higher education can also enhance environmental stewardship and overall quality of life.
📹 Sustainable Cities: Crash Course Geography #49
From towering skyscrapers covered in trees to zero carbon smart cities, there are so many ways to imagine what a sustainable city …
The massive elephant in the room is inequality, today which is a barrier to reaching human well being more than anything else. You cannot tackle a political subject like sustainability but shy away from inequality. As a data scientist you will sure appreciate Thomas Piketty’s work,( Capital in the Twenty-First Century) as he assembled virually unassailable data-based evidence on the increase in inequality. So, no not all trends improve. And the consequence is that the world could already have been a better place. And it will be a real struggle to improve it, if most of the money keeps going to a tiny minority interested in keeping the status quo. So if we don;t tackle this problem I fear that the things you advocate for will not happen. If you ever expand the book you have written, my suggestion would be to include inequality and its consequences. Thanks to Picketty you would have lots of data to draw from.
It’s odd that she cites increasing crop yields as that has come only through the ubiquitous use of fossil based fertilizer, pesticides, and a whole host of damaging agricultural techniques that have degraded the soil and environment to dangerous levels. Furthermore, the mining necessary for the renewables and electric cars she advocates come with their own strong dose of environmental destruction and human oppression. Optimism is so alluring but is it based in reality? The only hope is for widespread acceptance of the need for dramatic lifestyle change away from consumption, extraction, and exploitation of animals.
I recently read Hannah’s book ‘Not the End of the World’ and found Hannah’s case for optimism from our dire predicament quite strenuous and unconvincing, and she constructed a lot of straw men in the book in order to make her points. Her use of data in her book was selective to say the least. I also noted a number of inaccuracies (or at least significant divergencies from my own understanding of our predicament). She has also struggled to justify a lot of the positions she adopted in her own book. The section on de-growth was particularly ill informed, and the idea that renewables can replace fossil fuels, simply fanciful. I also struggled with her ‘war’ metaphor in the book, which I found bizarre. Her claim to absolute apolitical objectivity also, clearly indefensible. I don’t concur with Hannah’s definition of a ‘doomer’. I regard myself as a doomer in that I think I have a realistic understanding of our predicament and tend not to seek solace in cognitive dissonance or denial. I try to be a grown up and face the grim reality of our predicament. That doesn’t mean that I will ever give up hope in our ability to address some of the worst impacts of climate change – far from it – but I do push back against baseless optimism, which I regard as dangerous. Panic is an important human emotion as it can help us to conjure up the motivation and will to act on our worst fears. Buffering people from panic is unhelpful. In respect of the climate crisis, too much panic is not our problem, not enough panic is our problem.
It rhymes well with the ending “we need to do it bigger and much, much faster” that the example of the multistory bike rack in Amsterdam is already obsolete. It was too small, so it has been closed and replaced with a super fresh underground manned bike garage with the capacity of 7,000 bikes (and a smaller one for 4,000 bikes on the other side of the train station).
Great article but it’s a bit scewed in terms of what information gets presented. An example would be the fact that there are lines, which ones crossed start feeding into themselves in terms of global warming, such as greenlands ice having trapped methane gas in its ice as well as all glaciers acting as reflecting surfaces that cool down the earth by not absorbing as much solar energy. The more of them that melt the faster everything else starts heating up. Another would be the fact that electric cars are worse for the enviroment unless each unit is used for a significant amount of time, (I do not remember the exact amount but it was somewhere between 6-10 years if memory serves) due to the increased emissions when producing and assembling everything for an electric car compared to a combustion based one. Something which the current use and replace mindset of our economy doesn’t encourage. A third would be the fact that a very large part of the earths populace lives in said developing countries. One example being india, which last time I checked contained slightly more than 20% of the worlds population. It’s great that things are changing and the human race probably won’t go extingt at this point, after all we’re resilient bastards as a species. But it’s a bit of a too little too late situation from what I have gathered. For everyone who’ve read this far: Thank you for reading my needlessly long message and remember to do your own research, don’t trust anything I or anyone else says without fact checking it.
So many flaws. “Renewables” are heavily dependent on mined minerals. Mines are not sustainable. That high yield American agriculture is dependent on GMOs, fertilizer, and glyphosate. Also not sustainable. Many of those new forests are single specie monocultures slated to be cut. Absent some miraculous technological innovation, we can not buy or grow our way out of this. The best we can do right now is to shrink our population and consumption as gracefully as we can to buy time for new technologies. Hope is important, without it we die. However, this presentation is so naive that it comes off as deceptive.
This is definitely motivational! I’m reading her book as well, and it’s significantly lowered my Climate Anxiety. My only qualms are that I wish she’d talk about people just using/buying less! It’s frustrating that we can make all these tech advancements, but a lot folks just refuse to live with even a little bit less. Also, I would have liked to have heard more about our impact on animal species. I am more worried about my animal friends going extinct than I am about our sometimes toxic species! All in all, great talk, amazing woman.
Where do you get the materials plus no one seems to want to talk about replacement. Our Solar system has a big impact also. We overrate our importance and we are parasitic in our nature, so do we deserve our place in nature or are we going to delude ourselves and keep on trying to control it. Perhaps if we were a class one civilisation but that is a long way off.
Electric cars are better cars but still have significant impacts on the environment. Crop yields have increased – but not without increased fertiliser usage which causes big problems with nitrogen and phosphorus cycle. Solar panels and wind energy isn’t exactly clean. What about plastic pollution? What about climate tipping points? We are FAR from being sustainable. We need to change our lifestyles.
For anyone who’s annoyed with the push for more EV’s because of toxic chemicals used in lithium batteries. The push for EV’s is NOT a push to replace fossil fuels with lithium batteries. It’s a push to replace things that run on fossil fuels with things that run on electricity. An electric vehicle can run off anything the produces electricity, it can be lithium batteries today and more green batteries tech tomorrow. It can change instantly as soon as new battery tech comes to market. Just build next years model with different battery cells and you’re done. What we CANNOT change instantly is all the infrastructure required to support EV’s. That takes a lot of time, many 10’s of years. Building massive charging networks, Expanding the national grid to support all the people needing to charge, Understanding all the technical challengers of building EV’s. etc… The EV push is to get all that done now to save time later. It doesn’t matter if an EV today is just as polluting as a fossil fuel car. It maters that we make the change now so we’re ready for all the new battery technologies that will occur over the next 30 years.
Hello? Your saying that global north countries are reducing their emissions? Which consists of 75% of the global emissions?. Global north can do that because they have the resources while global south who contribute so little to none cant even feed their people and you expect them to transition to renewable without any help.. cool story.. rich countries kickstart this climate catastrophe and poor countries are the one suffering… Coal are declining but oil and gas company from the west and middle east are still continuing their greediness
This all seems extremely biased to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a relentless pessimist, but Dr. Ritchie’s presentation only brings up European/North American data. Sure, life might be getting better there (as it has been for the past two centuries, sustainably or not), but the global south is no where near these rates of carbon independence. Commercial exploitation, political interventionism, industrial dependence and all sorts of other factors continue to hinder the development of these countries towards a sustainable society. Every time I hear someone mention how great electric cars are and how much more common place they are becoming, I recall that I have never seen one driving around in the city I live. Not only because the necessary infrastructure doesn’t exist here, but because their so-called “affordability” is no where near to being affordable for the common folk in the global south. Search up what a FIAT Uno 1998 is. That is still the most common affordable every-man car in my country.
A really inspiring and well-researched presentation, Hannah. Thank you 🙏. I’d be interested to know what stats you have on the state of biodiversity over the same time frames. You mentioned an increase in trees and an increase in agricultural production that potentially means less land needed for our species. Do you have any stats on how other species are doing?
Love this! Incredibly refreshing and I’m currently reading her book. My only query I have is about crop yields… the higher production from crops means that the soil takes a massive hit and it reduces its quality, no? The way we treat the soil is reprehensible. We need diversity within soil to store carbon and to rewild the land. But maybe she discusses this further in her book and I’m yet to read it!
Speaking about sustainability in product design and development many forgot that before the plastic era most of products were almost completely sustainable. Today we have opportunity to innovate by relying on the very same materials and manufacturing processes and complement them with new technologies. The challenge is to convince global corporation and brands because they want people to believe that the plastic is the only solution. With technology, science and resources that we have today we could build a heaven on Earth, but unfortunately all are democracy, freedom and human rights are not as important as interest of politicians, corporations and their investors. We are the first generation but we must fight for generations to come, because we have horrible history and truth to face, but amazing opportunity to shape the future in our own way.
0:31: 🌍 Young people today feel crippled with anxiety about the future of humanity due to climate change. 2:40: 🌍 The world has made significant progress in improving human wellbeing, but at the cost of the environment. 5:50: 🌍 Global CO2 emissions have peaked and are falling due to technological advancements and the decline of coal. 8:24: ! Technology and innovation have decoupled human progress from environmental impact, allowing us to end global poverty and reduce CO2 emissions. 11:06: 🌍 The article discusses the importance of sustainability in various aspects of our lives. Recap by Tammy AI
This is shameful cherry-picking. Shame on you. Yes we need all of these things to make progress to cushion the decline, but look at the statistics that do not support your argument. I want you to be right, but look at the decrease in life spans, even in developed countries. Also, understand that this data is necessarily two years old when it is published. Your arguments are set up as “either / or”. This is an artificial analysis. That you would present this as science truly worries me as much as any data I have reviewed.
Also super rich must be taxed and change their lifestyle. Last year, private jets emissions amounted more CO2 than the whole country of Uganda with 46 million people. It’s unfair to impose lifestyle restrictions on middle class and working class populations while the mega rich just use up an obscene amount of our resources. The 5% richest are responsible for the increase of 37% in GHG emissions in the last twenty years. Look up Confronting Carbon Inequality. Also we need to stop funding fossil fuel industries…
Thanks so much, Hannah! We have to be the first sustainable generation, and I know we can do it!. I came across an interesting article in the New York Times this week. It was called “Why Is the Oil Industry Booming?”( 2024/07/16). It made me think about how much US oil and gas production has increased recently. It seems that oil CEOs are expecting their companies to keep growing until at least 2040! It’s a bit of a puzzle, isn’t it? The thing is, both types of energy are connected financially. How can we work through this together? I think your colleague Tim Jackson, the author of the book “The Prosperity without Growth,” has a more realistic and optimistic view. He says we need to cut down on our emissions by 80% by 2050, which I think is totally doable! On the other hand, we need a lot of innovations to help our global society become more eco-friendly. We also need to embrace a new way of thinking about our economy, one that’s focused on knowledge, learning, art, science, public health, and other important areas. These are the sectors that have always been decarbonized, so they’re a great place to start. This new Cinderella economy will rely less on carbon emissions, giving the global economy what it needs most: new ideas!
A lot of very good points and admirable aims, but I have a few questions. I wonder why converting forests to farm land is presented as a bad thing, but converting farmland to wind installations isn’t? How has the USA made maize production skyrocket without an increase in farmland? What “modern technology” is being used? And is her brother as pleased with his electric car after this winter, as he was when he bought it last Spring? Sales of EVs have peaked, and EV manufacturers are beginning to close, or “delaying” investment in new factories or new EV models.
More than anything, the economic system needs to change. Solar and wind are actually already quite cheap. Literally too cheap for oil companies, who have stated – on record – that solar and wind are “too cheap to economically exploit”. They want “at least 12% profit margins, whereas solar and wind only reach up to 9%”. This is what I mean with a new economic system: one focused on people, rather than the rich and their profits.
Developed countries have come through the period that their carbon production was rising in the last century and already caused huge pollution. They now have the capacity to reduce their carbon because of their abundant cumulated capital. This scenario is ubiquitous across nations. But developing countries started the technology development in a more slower pace. And they are required to reduce their carbon emissions to cleanse a world previously polluted by the most developed nations. That is a rather ironic logic.
Hannah’s definition of sustainable is bizarre. She seems to have defined it as something all/most humans would agree with and want. So of course, achieving those things would be sustainable in her view. However, sustainable means it can be sustained indefinitely. Of course, this has never been true of any species or ecosystem on Earth but many have persisted for an incredibly long time. In general, only systems which consume resources at or below (preferably below) the renewal rates of those resources and do not damage the environment at a rate that the environment can’t assimilate without continued damage can be close to sustainable. This has nothing to do with what we want for ourselves or our children. Nothing in Hannah’s talk shows that achieving her goals can lead to sustainability because she doesn’t address the essence of what sustainability means. Physics/nature doesn’t care about what humans want and will apply its rules regardless.
With the amount of Cluster B personality types in power we’re likely doomed if we can’t articulate a way to make sustainability ‘profitable’. I’ve been working on creating a profitable model for carbon capture and I’ve posted this preliminary idea online but it’s as if nobody cares to admit money, and ROI is at the forefront of change…
My dad was Catholic and Republican all of his adult life so I was exposed to a lot of that kind of thinking. I wouldn’t consider myself a Republican or a Democrat. Mostly I’m very disappointed in this barely working binary political system that I find myself in, in the US. The biggest factor that influenced my political beliefs was when I would see coverage of candidates that once publically supported something but then when the political landscape changed they no longer supported that topic simply because it’s now inconvenient. That makes me insane. I was angry at conservatives for a long time but now I believe that most people in the world want a better world. I’ve never met someone that didn’t want a better world for their children. I can’t explain why so many conservatives are climate denyers. Seeing anyone deny factual evidence is a red flag for me. The data that shows some young people don’t want to have kids is depressing. Here in Florida it’s not just future climate uncertainty but houses are so expensive whether you buy or rent. Even for kids that can afford a 4+ year college education there really doesn’t exist any entry-level housing. Also, interest rates are very high and the cost of transportation is very high. If our young people are depressed and have no hope what do you think’s going to happen in this country? Everyday we don’t work together brings the US closer to a possible communist future. Depressed low intelligence people with no hope have a much higher chance to vote for someone who says they are goung to put a billion dollars in everyone’s account even though that would destroy our entire Financial system.
Do we want a sustainable generation where people are under the oppressive one-world government controlled by oligarchs? Or do we want a sustainable generation where true environmental care is the effect of prosperity, prosperity is the effect of the absence of oligarchy and presence of economic liberty and egalitarianism, egalitarianism is the effect of absence of monopoly granted by government, and market competition is the effect of decentralized government or the absence of big government or total absence of state/government?
The current generation was raised so spoiled that parents created a large amount of narcissists. Narcissists are deep inside fearful and the only sustainable thing is their low selfesteem. Sad condition of humanity. They say that good times create weak people and weak people create hard times. Hard times create strong people and strong people create good times. It is a neverending circle.
It is too late to talk about environment, the people’s wanna much mill in they’re bank account and they are very greedy and irascibile, the world will fall and the lights will resurrect anyway, the power of good people’s will win this battle BUT ONLY TOGETHER ALL TOGETHER WE WILL EIN THIS WAR IF SOMEBODY ARE INTERESTED, HELP THE NEXT ONE, WE ARE THE CHANGE AND WE SHOULD DO IT NOW, NOT TOMORROW.
Everone here needs to ask themselves what their rational expectations are that we will rise to the occassion to make all the changes we must to reach true sustainability? With all the major global problems, who is going to do the work? Who is going to stop all the religious wars that are now going parabolic? Its a nice idea, we could fix the problems ahead, but humans will not make changes until after the collapse. That, is our track record, and our clear way we do things, while we say never again.
Global population has to be limited to 5 Billion. You cannot simply sit and watch that graph going high. Secondly there should be a limit for the use of natural resources for each and every one, including business establishments. If you’re rich you can buy anything lavishly should not be the norm. If you are a company you cannot extract unlimited natural resources. There should be a control or limit for everything.
Evolution or extinction? Are we able to learn to live in harmony with each other, nature and technology including AI? Sustainability not profitability. Mindfulness and self love, respect not exploitation. Our species faces a major die off, the population is passing the peak, passing a tipping point where our population goes from exponential growth to a transition to a new sustainable relationship with the ecosystem that has sustained us up until now. That downward curve can be as steep as a cliff which falls to zero, extinction, or it can begin steeply and recover as it returns to historic levels of sustainability, pre-technology levels such as pre-Columbian America. This could lead to a selection pressure that would produce a new species of hominid, speciation. The curve could be more gentle and could include technological solutions that would level off at a population that could both live more harmoniously with nature and each other and incorporate technology that would represent an evolution into a new species of technologically enhanced humanity, cyborgs. Taking life to other planets, terraforming and evolving new species of humans who could survive other planetary ecologies is another path that will require technologies including genetic engineering to reach for the stars. Managing these changes in a moral and humane way brings hope to a future that appears very scary from our selfish and ethnocentric perspectives. Keep up the good work or as John Perkins says “Dream True” instead of living like the hero of his book “Confessions of an Economic Hitman.