Tights into fan belts: design for thrifty times

As countries and companies look for ways to save the planet – and money – Rhymer Rigby suggests that sustainable design is now more relevant than ever

Next time you buy a sofa, here’s an interesting question to ask yourself: would you rather have one £4,000 sofa or eight £500 sofas? Not in your living room, but over the course of your lifetime.

As we’re increasingly beginning to realise, a well-made object that lasts a long time and can be repaired and updated is a sustainable choice, no matter what its other credentials.

This has become an issue because our consumption habits have changed. We don’t really expect our consumer durables to be that durable any more.

Since the early 1990s, our neophilia has reached dizzy heights, largely driven – in the case of interiors at least – by magazines and companies whose interests lie in a regular (and, historically, shockingly short) upgrade cycle.

Items such as chairs, tables and desks that previous generations would have expected to last at least 20 years are now chucked out after two or three. The demand for mid-market antiques has almost collapsed as a result.

Chances are, you can buy a Victorian mahogany dining table for less now than you could 30 years ago; who wants old when you can have new and shiny? We throw away two million tonnes of clothes a year, up 34% on 1996. Almost three-quarters of the clothes bought in the UK end up in landfill.

But our love affair with the ever-new may be coming to a close – and not just for environmental reasons. Everything from the economy to the desire to shop ethically is making us reconsider our unsustainable attitude to durables.

Lisa Whatmough, owner of London furniture maker Squint, believes we are seeing a move away from ephemeral interiors. “Part of the problem has been that, in the past few decades, people have been into upgrading their homes. You go from a flat to a house to a bigger house and you buy a new batch of furniture each time. The credit crunch could well stop the endless aspiring to buy bigger and better things – not least because people won’t be moving house so often.”

Whatmough believes we are overdue at least a partial return to an attitude familiar to householders in the 1940s: “We expect you to buy a piece of furniture knowing it will last your entire life.” Moreover, she says, if clients bring her good-quality old furniture, she’ll renovate it for them.

This return to a ‘make do and mend’ mentality goes hand-in-hand with our new-found love of craftsmanship, and is reaching far beyond the bespoke end of the market.

Websites offering tips on recycling household items (tights can be used for everything from pond skimmers to fan belts, while “pantyhose make excellent polishing cloths” according to www.greenlivingtips.com) have exploded in popularity, and home make-over shows emphasise frugality and reuse where once they embraced consumerism.

The iconic lamp-maker Anglepoise is a fifth-generation family business that has been around for 150 years. “We’re in it for the long haul,” says CEO Simon Terry, the founder’s great-great-grandson.

“That’s what we do. Our philosophy has always been to make it right first time. We find ourselves looking after customers who have our lights for 75 years.”

The company recently launched a kit that allows customers to rewire their old lamps to current standards.

“We’re a small company,” he explains, “and we can’t compete with cheap lights from places like IKEA – so we don’t.”

But, he says, when you buy an Anglepoise light, you enter into a relationship with the company.

When something goes wrong with your lamp 15 years down the line, you know there’s a good chance, you’ll be able to get spares or have it repaired.

Of course, an Anglepoise lamp retails at £60, as opposed to IKEA’s £12. But a £12 lamp is something designed to be thrown away the moment the interiors magazines tell you it’s time for another make-over. And the same applies to everything from fashion to household appliances.

Laudable though Terry’s stance is, there are some items for which the long-life sustainable philosophy doesn’t work so well. It would be impractical to buy a laptop believing it would be useable 30 years later. Nor has the thrifty, make-it-to-last approach filtered through to the mobile phone industry yet. But not everything at the cutting edge must be disposable.

One of the most celebrated examples of this is the near-indestructible Land Rover. It’s modular (parts can be replaced easily), extremely robust, (mostly) British-made and easy to service. Small wonder that 75% of Land Rovers made since 1955 are still on the road today.

And, if you look around you, there are plenty of products that fall into this category. Michael Bonney, of British bicycle-maker Orange Bikes, says that many of the company’s earliest models from the late 1980s are still being ridden (although, he adds, you probably wouldn’t want to ride a 1988 mountain bike down some of today’s more difficult trails). And it’s not just upmarket, custom-made bikes to which this applies. “Unless you damage the frame, almost any bike will last indefinitely.”

The credit crunch could stop the endless aspiring to buy bigger and better things – we could buy furniture that will last an entire lifetime

But why do people expect an indefinite life from a bike when they no longer do from a chair? The answer may well be because no one has designed a disposable bike yet. More generally, though, mendability is usually related to relative cost.

In India or China, many objects considered disposable in the West are repaired. We may soon follow suit. The cost of any good, notes Terry, is the raw materials plus the labour – and the golden age of wasteful consumption has relied on both low raw material costs and low labour costs. As recent fluctuations in oil and steel prices have shown, this cannot be depended upon. And, in the longer term,as workshop countries like China become relatively richer, neither can low labour costs.

Whatmough points to the fact that her furniture is all made in the UK and keeping craft skills alive. While this may seem desirable in a warm, fuzzy Islington kind of way, it’s positive in other ways, too.

After almost two decades of ignoring manufacturing and genuflecting before a financial services sector that had, in historical terms, swollen to become a disproportionately large part of the UK economy, we’ve suddenly discovered that it’s quite nice to have an economy where things are made and value is added.

There are reasons to suggest the tide is turning against the sort of disposable minimalism espoused by celebrity culture and popularised by much of the press. A few years ago, a rekindling of interest in the craft movement began. People now talk of authenticity and seek somewhere that tells the tale of a life lived rather than a magazine read.

The hard-edged minimalist sometimes struggles to translate into Britain’s largely Victorian housing stock. And, as Whatmough points out, while the clean, modern look may be pleasing to the eye, a well-upholstered sofa is a million times more comfortable to sit on.

So are we returning to the values of the 1940s? Not quite. But we are coming to realise that at some point in the 1990s, the British – long respected for their restraint, modesty and love of quality – took a collective look at WAG bling and bought into it in a big way. But make-over and move and this season’s sofa was then. Now, it’s make do and mend and design for life.

“There’s no such thing as sustainable design”

Professor Michael Braungart, author of Cradle To Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, on why we should look beyond sustainability to consider good and bad design

I always think it’s a bit sad that whenever we talk about the environment we start talking about sustainable design. Suddenly we’ve reduced our concerns to a tiny niche.

Besides, sustainability is just not very ambitious. If your husband or wife was to say “our relationship is sustainable” that’s not really enough. So there is no sustainable design, just good design or not-good design.

For years, traditional environmentalists have encouraged us to think about the environment from a guilt perspective. Being told to reduce our carbon footprint is like saying ‘it’s better if I’m not here’.

Guilt management has turned into an obsession for eco-efficiency. We just can’t get enough of being ‘less bad’ instead of working on eco-effectiveness to produce things that make the planet more productive.

What people don’t realise is that the problem isn’t just a carbon or energy problem, it’s a methane problem and a nitrous oxide problem, concerning the ingredients and materials we use.

Of course, most designers are not material scientists. They don’t need to be – they just need to ask the right questions. But first, they need to have more ambition. Some designers say “let’s beautify this at the end”, instead of “let’s make really good design”.

We need to unite people around positive goals and then they can think about how to really achieve something. Designers could say, for example, “in 10 years, no chemicals from products or materials will accumulate in breast milk” and take that as a starting point for creation.

‘Cradle-to-cradle’ companies such as Philips and AkzoNobel collaborate with others. Together, they say “let’s make a printer that actively cleans the air”. So you can be ambitious and make products that are really beneficial in the same way trees are beneficial, rather than just being less bad.

The key message is that companies and designers must define meaningful goals for what they want to achieve. Products don’t need to be perfect, because you can’t know what perfect will mean in 2020.

It’s more about being willing to define your intentions. If all designers could have more ambition and more self-esteem, that would be a very good start.

Leaner and greener

Sustainable design in action around the world

Milking it

Gallon milk jugs from Wal-Mart and Costco in the US are designed to stack together, making shipping more efficient. The milk arrives at stores more quickly, retailers save up to 70% on labour and customers pay 10 to 20 cents less per jug.

Reason to believe

The Reason washing machine (www.reasonwashingmachine.com) automatically dispenses the correct amount of water and detergent – and its 10kg drum lets you wash more clothes in the same cycle.

Daily bread

First launched in 1945, the Dualit toaster has become a design icon and, unlike most white goods, it’s built to last. Handmade in the UK, all its parts can be repaired or replaced. It’s user-friendly too: the manually operated lever allows you keep toast warm until you want to eat it.

Great Danes

Hansen Living kitchen furnishings are designed to last decades and improve with age. The range, made from sustainably harvested wood, is assembled in Denmark.

Long haul

US luggage firm Briggs & Riley is revered by travellers for its ‘Simple as that’ warranty, which guarantees replacement bags or cases, even if an airline is responsible for the damage.

Green swoosh

Nike’s Trash Talk basketball trainer is made from the company’s manufacturing by-products. The top of the shoe comes from synthetic leather waste from the factory floor and the outsole from ecologically sound rubber.

Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 6, Summer 2009