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Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability and also aimed at improving the health and comfort of occupants in a building. Sustainable design seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, the health and well-being of building occupants, thereby improving building performance. The basic objectives of sustainability are to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources, minimize waste, and create healthy, productive environments. Theory The sustainable design intends to "eliminate negative environmental impact through skillful sensitive design". Manifestations of sustainable design require renewable resources and innovation to impact the environment minimally, and connect people with the natural environment. "Human beings don't have a pollution problem; they have a design problem. If humans were to devise products, tools, furniture, homes, factories, and cities more intelligently from the start, they wouldn't even need to think in terms of waste, contamination, or scarcity. Good design would allow for abundance, endless reuse, and pleasure." - The Upcycle by authors Michael Braungart and William McDonough, 2013. Design-related decisions are happening everywhere daily, impacting "sustainable development" or provisioning for the needs of future generations of life on earth. Sustainability and design are intimately linked. Quite simply, our future is designed. The term "design" is here used to refer to practices applied to the making of products, services, as well as business and innovation strategies — all of which inform sustainability. Sustainability can be thought of as the property of continuance; that is, what is sustainable can be continued. Conceptual problems Diminishing returns The principle that all directions of progress run out, ending with diminishing returns, is evident in the typical 'S' curve of the technology life cycle and in the useful life of any system as discussed in industrial ecology and life cycle assessment. Diminishing returns are the result of reaching natural limits. Common business management practice is to read diminishing returns in any direction of effort as an indication of diminishing opportunity, the potential for accelerating decline, and a signal to seek new opportunities elsewhere. (see also: law of diminishing returns, marginal utility, and Jevons paradox.) Unsustainable investment A problem arises when the limits of a resource are hard to see, so increasing investment in response to diminishing returns may seem profitable as in the Tragedy of the Commons, but may lead to a collapse. This problem of increasing investment in diminishing resources has also been studied as a cause of civilization collapse by Joseph Tainter among others. This natural error in investment policy contributed to the collapse of both the Roman and Mayan, among others. Relieving over-stressed resources requires reducing pressure on them, not continually increasing it whether more efficiently or not. Negative Effects of Waste The designer is responsible for choices that place a demand on natural resources, produce waste, and potentially cause irreversible ecosystem damage. About 80 million tonnes of waste in total are generated in the U.K. alone, for example, each year. And concerning only household waste, between 1991–92 and 2007–08, each person in England generated an average of 1.35 pounds of waste per day. Experience has now shown that there is no completely safe method of waste disposal. All forms of disposal have negative effects on the environment, public innovation, and local economies. Landfills have contaminated drinking water. Garbage burned in incinerators has poisoned air, soil, and water. The majority of water treatment systems change the local ecology. Attempts to control or manage wastes after they are produced fail to eliminate environmental impacts. The toxic components of household products pose serious health risks and aggravate the trash problem. In the U.S., about seven pounds in every ton of household garbage contains toxic materials, such as heavy metals like nickel, lead, cadmium, and mercury from batteries, and organic compounds found in pesticides and consumer products, such as air freshener sprays, nail polish, cleaners, and other products. When burned or buried, toxic materials also pose a serious threat to public health and the environment. The only way to avoid environmental harm from waste is to prevent its generation. Pollution prevention means changing the way activities are conducted and eliminating the source of the problem. It does not mean doing without, but doing differently. For example, preventing waste pollution from litter caused by disposable beverage containers does not mean doing without beverages; it just means using refillable bottles. Industrial designer Victor Papanek has stated that when we design and plan things to be discarded, we exercise insufficient care in design. Waste prevention strategies In planning for facilities, a comprehensive design strategy is needed for preventing the generation of solid waste. A good garbage prevention strategy would require that everything brought into a facility is recycled for reuse or recycled back into the environment through biodegradation. This would mean a greater reliance on natural materials or products that are compatible with the environment. Any resource-related development is going to have two basic sources of solid waste — materials purchased and used by the facility and those brought into the facility by visitors. The following waste prevention strategies apply to both, although different approaches will be needed for implementation. use products that minimize waste and are nontoxic compost or anaerobically digest biodegradable wastes reuse materials onsite or collect suitable materials for offsite recycling consuming fewer resources means creating less waste, therefore it reduces the impact on the environment. Climate change Perhaps the most obvious and overshadowing driver of environmentally conscious sustainable design can be attributed to global warming and climate change. The sense of urgency that now prevails for humanity to take action against climate change has increased manifold in the past thirty years. Climate change can be attributed to several faults, and improper design that doesn't take into consideration the environment is one of them. While several steps in the field of sustainability have begun, most products, industries, and buildings still consume a lot of energy and create a lot of pollution. Loss of Biodiversity Unsustainable design, or simply design, also affects the biodiversity of a region. Improper design of transport highways forces thousands of animals to move further into forest boundaries. Poorly designed hyd.... Discover the Editors Of Creative Homeowner Gardening popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Editors Of Creative Homeowner Gardening books.