Greengaged

In the second part of the Greengaged event, “Wasted Talent”, the twenty-five piece group of designers, writers and academics arrived at Powerday waste recycling centre on Thursday morning. We were warmly met by Chris and John from Powerday, who after a brief introduction split us into two groups for an informal tour around the facility.

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In November 2008, Professor Michael Braungart will launch a new UK edition of ‘Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things’, the prolific and best-selling manifesto “calling for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design.” Greengaged are excited to announce that the new edition will be published by Random House, and in the new introduction Michael writes;

“In the nineteenth century various writers used the phrase ‘the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world’ - and to them this meant that the way we raise our children would do more to change the world than empire-builders and new industries. The hands that rocks Cradle to Cradle today fit the phrase, I think, as our agenda is also about finding nurturing solutions very different to the often outrageous initiatives that harm the environment, sometimes by the same sort of institutions. Cradle to Cradle tried to put human being in the same ’species’ picture as other living things - and to us, a misuse of material resources is not just suicidal for future human generations but catastrophic for the future of life.” (Braungart, M. 2008. Cradle to Cradle).

On Monday evening, Professor Michael Braungart will close the penultimate day of Greengaged, with a lecture at the Royal Society of Arts that will highlight fields of materials assessment, waste and energy balances, and life-cycle design. Braungart’s lecture will be followed by a conversation with science and culture of materials writer Philip Ball.

To celebrate the launch of Greengaged, event organisers (left to right) Sophie Thomas (co-founder, thomas.matthews), David Kester (CEO, Design Council), Sarah Johnson of [re]design and Anne Chick (Director, Sustainable Design Research Centre, Kingston University) took a ten minute rest in the Greengaged Skip!

In prime place outside the Design Council in Convent Garden, the Greengaged Skip was created by Goldsmiths University graduate Oliver Bishop Young, with [re]design. You can view further photographs of the Greengaged Skip after the jump and on Flickr.

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Early this Monday morning, in the heart of London, over sixty people arrived at the Design Council, for the “BIG BANG” breakfast launch of Greengaged, the eagerly anticipated sustainability hub at London Design Festival 2008!

Following an introductory welcome from David Kester, Chief Exec of the Design Council, Sophie Thomas, co-founder of thomas.matthews, took to the stand and set an ambitious launch debate: “This house believes that the primary responsibility for tackling global climate change lies with the design industry.”

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