acrobat JSPD 8 - The Centre for Sustainable Design

Tim Cooper is Director of the Centre for
Sustainable Consumption at Sheffield
Hallam University, UK. His research
interests include the life span of
consumer durables, the environmental
impact of consumption, and environmental
ethics. He worked in industry as an
economist for ten years prior to undertaking
research at the New Economics
Foundation on the recycling and re-use
of household products, producing a
report entitled ‘Beyond Recycling: the
longer life option’. He is a trustee of
CREATE, a Liverpool based charity
employing trainees formerly in long
term unemployment to repair
household appliances. Currently
he is acting as Specialist Adviser
to the UK House of Commons
Environment Committee for its
enquiry into ‘Reducing the
Environmental Impact
of Consumer Products’.
Creating an economic
infrastructure for
sustainable product design
Tim Coopern
This paper identifies major changes
to the economic infrastructure
which are required in order to
progress towards sustainable
development and suggests that
these could support sustainable
product design (SPD). It focuses
on the measurement of economic
progress, the potential of fiscal
reform to change the relative cost
of manufacturing and after-sales
services, environmental objections
to industrial concentration and
free trade, and the availability of
products designed for the least
possible environmental impact. The
paper concludes that the present
infrastructure of the economic
system provides inadequate
incentives for people to choose
greener consumption patterns
and offers little to encourage the
development of SPD.
The economy and
design activity
Any government’s economic
and environmental policies
have significance for the design
community, being part of the
social context within which
designers work. Through its
JANUARY 1999 · THE JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE PRODUCT DESIGN
ANALYSIS
Director, Centre for Sustainable Consumption, School of
Leisure and Food Management, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
budgetary policy, for example,
a government can influence
economic activity and, in particular,
the amount of consumption,
investment and taxation on
individuals and company profits.
It thus helps to determine the
level of consumer demand and
the resources available to
companies to invest in product
development, both of which
affect designers’ workloads.
Government policy can also
change the price of factor inputs,
such as labour, energy and raw
materials, which determines the
relative cost of different design
options for products (as well as
the designer’s own running
costs). Thus, for example, higher
taxation on energy would
increase demand for energy
efficient products. Increased
landfill tax might result in greater
demand for products that are
designed to be easily recycled. A
reduction in employers’ National
Insurance contributions (effectively
a jobs tax) could make
repairing household appliances,
which is often labour-intensive,
more economically attractive.
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