Less is the New More
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 11. 5.06
This TreeHugger's mantra has been "The key to sustainability is simply to use less, and the key to happily using less is to design things better." Mies van der Rohe is famous for the phrase "less is more", Harry Wakefield of Mocoloco updated it for our title, but the point is this: there are so many things being designed and produced that let us live in less space, consume less energy or fewer resources, that are not obviously or necessarily "green" and do not grace the pages of TreeHugger. Yet through original invention or good design, they have an impact on the way we live and on the size of our footprint. The notebook computer did not develop as a green replacement for a desktop, yet there is no question that it has a smaller physical and ecological footprint- It is greener by design, and now customers are demanding greener manufacture.
We first ventured into this territory last year when I declared the iPod Nano to be the green product of the year, to much criticism including: "I'm surprised that anyone literate enough to use a computer can be so short-sighted as to think the environmental cost of an object is measured by its size. It takes resources to manufacture electronics components, batteries, etc. According to the BBC, it takes 75kg of raw materials to manufacture a mobile phone, I doubt the figure for an iPod nano is much different." I respect the argument, and expect that many of the things we cover in this category will attact the same. Nonetheless, there are so many ideas, inventions, and designs of furniture, housing, electronics and other categories that let us get by with less stuff and less space, and every cubic foot saved means less material to build, less energy to maintain. For many of them, it is not a stretch to imagine them made sustainably with green materials. Watch this space.
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
This is a very good point, Lloyd. I would add "urban living" to your list. It may be a concrete jungle, but it's a very efficient system. Even the most profligate urban dwellers who use the subway and live in a highrise will probably have a smaller footprint than their most treehugging suburban cousins. One example: none of my urban-dwelling friends uses a car to get their groceries.
Too many people out there still think that "green" has to be green. I know of one treehugger in particular who thinks her brand new, exurban McMansion is "green" because it encroaches--sorry, "borders"--on conservation land. Her surroundings may be green, but her lifestyle sure isn't.
Our economy is our ecosystem, and for all its current problems, it does have a way of driving efficiencies. If we could rewrite the groundrules to better account for externalities, that's probably the way we'll ultimately find harmony with our planet.
Desert and polar ecosystems are hardly coloured green. Maybe the human one isn't, either.
I couldn't agree more with the post. Good, smart design enables more to be done with less. Less materials, less tools, less energy, less land, less of everything. There are too many people on the planet consuming too many resources. If we want to maintain good standards of living while minimizing our impact on the planet, we simply have to do more with less and that means smart, efficient innovative design. Innovation is one resource that can not be exhausted.