Greengaged

As many of you will be aware, famed designer Philippe Starck launched 'Design for Life' last month, his very own reality show not too dissimilar in format to The Apprentice. Aired on BBC2 as the Greengaged week was underway at the Design Council, the third episode of the series attempted to explore how design could solve ecological issues. In response to finding herself infront of the show, Greengaged co-founder and sustainable design guru Sophie Thomas raises her criticism. You can read the full feature here and also listen to an audio recording of the feature too.

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Exciting news! Greengaged has been nominated for the Cooper-Hewitt People's Design Award 2009! A huge thank you to everyone - curators, speakers, tech team, twitterers, volunteers and all our audience members for raising the Greengaged profile Stateside.

Please login to the website, add a comment about any events you've been too, and vote before October 20, 2009. The winner will be announced live online from the National Design Awards gala in New York, on October 22 at 10:00 p.m. EST. "What is good design? You tell us!" Vote Greengaged for the 2009 People's Design Award!

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On October 12th 2009, London's Ecological Literacy Initiative EcoLabs are running their inaugural "Teach-In" - a student conference aiming to help the design industry embrace ecological literacy & systemic change. Several hundred of students are scheduled to attend the event at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, whilst the entire event will also be streamed online to dozens of participating design institutions around the world! Speakers include John Thackara (Doors of Perception), Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation), Richard Hawkins (PIRC), Ben Gill (BioRegional), Jonathan Crinion (Crinion Associates), Emma Dewberry (Open University) and Stephanie Hankey (Tactical Technology Collective. Questions from remote audiences will be taken, via Twitter @2012Imperative.

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photo by: Chiara Terraneo

Just a quick post to say what an incredible week we all had during Greengaged last week. Thanks to all five of our curators, and their extensive list of participating speakers! And, of course thanks to everyone who came to the events of last week. We have had an incredible response and thank everyone who took part. We have a big list of blog posts and articles in the pipeline now, not to mention more events and of course our involvement at Icograda next month. Whilst we collate all the information and get the blog rolling, do check out our flickr channel to see the happenings of last week, and connect with us on Twitter too!

As Greengaged 2009 gets underway at the Design Council, I'm pleased to share our first Greengaged video. Featuring the voices of co-founders Sophie Thomas, Sarah Johnson and Anne Chick, and the Design Council's Chief Executive David Kester, this short film offers a brief insight into the aims and 2008 success of Greengaged.

There are still a few places left for events this current week, so do check the incredible line-up, via our events page, and register for the last few places! 

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.

photo by: Kate Andrews

So, how can design save the world? Maybe it's about more than switching to groovy eco materials (bamboo laptop, anyone?).

Maybe we need to redesign the systems of society that produce unsustainability. A prime example is banking. It's a system based upon credit - spending today what we may earn tomorrow, creating problems of accelerated use of resources, waste, a lack of resilience (did you know that over two thirds of households in the UK are less than one month from bankruptcy?). And despite carbon neutral policies and Equator principles you could argue banking barely has a sustainable or responsible bone in its body. But as we explore banking we can start to find alternatives.

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