Greengaged

photo by: Walter Parenteau

What any print designer is interested in is the product that they can hold in their hand at the end of the day; and yet design must now consider the bigger system which that finished product fits within and is born out of. In print terms, about 4.7 million tons of fresh, unused paper is thrown away by UK print companies each year as sometimes large unused off-cuts. 4.7 million tons is an unimaginably large amount; production of each ton of paper requires in the region of 17 trees, 7,000 gallons of water and more energy per ton than glass or steel. Do the maths on the large numbers by all means, but it’s clearly very significant.

On average, paper represents 80% of the carbon footprint of a piece of print, which makes paper one of the largest contributing factors to the environmental performance of a company. Before all the print buyers and designers evacuate the room, there are intelligent approaches that don’t mean doing away with print, by instead making its production much more effective!

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photo by: Chiara Terraneo

Earlier this week Greengaged was pleased to welcome Sheena Matheiken of The Uniform Project to Ed Gillespie's panel on behaviour change in fashion and travel.

The Uniform Project is all about one ambitious and highly creative woman, who is wearing one black shift dress for 365 days. The project has two aims; 1. To raise awareness about sustainable fashion and 2. Raise money (through donations) for the Akanksha Foundation, a nonprofit group providing educational programs to children who live in Mumbai’s slums. At Greengaged, Sheena explained how she wanted to make an "extreme statement about consumers", "change perspectives about shopping and fashion", "to bring back the creativity into fashion" and prove that "with imagination and through creativity, sustainable fashion can be stylish." Keep up to date with Sheena's project (and outfits!) on her pictorial website and twitter feed (@UniformProject).

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Fancy a sneaky peak at Friday’s material ‘speed date’ session? Well, imagine a room full of makers and creaters, specifiers and promoters ...all waiting to talk to you and answer those burning questions you have about materials!

Next week, Friday’s morning session ‘the knowledge transfer workshop’ promises to take you step-by-step (actually stride by stride as we will be moving at pace around the tables) through that part of the design process where you decide on the material you will build, mould, construct and design with. If you are confused as to how to start specifying sustainable materials or if you want to question some piece of potential greenwash seen on a product then bring your questions and samples along to present to our amazing assemblage of experts which includes Chris Wise from Expedition Engineering, Guy Robinson from Sprout Design, Christopher Pett from Pli Design, recent RCA graduate Thomas Thwaite and other esteemed people from Arup, BRE, Giraffe Innovation, One Planet Products, Saint-Gobain, Smile Plastics and Wrap, with others still confirming.

Register your place here.

On Friday 25th September, in association with Saint-Gobain and Aggregate Industries, greengaged is hosting The Materials Behind Sustainability event. We have created a survey to find out about your current materials choices, the results will feed into the Friday event. Please spend a few minutes letting us know about the materials you enjoy working with, and how you choose them. Take the Materials Survey here.

Register for this unique trip around the Olympic Park with Dan Epstein, Head of Sustainability and Regeneration. This tour will have particular focus on the sustainable approach taken to materials used on the site.

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