Audit - Wayne

Audit

In an attempt to investigate how well the university art, media and design faculty performs from an environmentally responsible perspective our group has carried out an audit. We felt that the key areas to investigate were:

·         Energy – what, if any, energy saving practices are in place?

·         Consumables – How does the university try to minimize its environmental impact with its use of materials such as paper, printing and the workshops?

·         Recycling – How well does the university perform with recycling materials?

As our focus was on the AMD faculty my primary target was the graphic design studio and the facilities associated with it. I found that under the energy saving category this area performs badly; in fact the Henrion building consumes the most energy on campus.

This is hardly surprising considering the large amount of electrical equipment being used in the building however I think the following changes could improve the situation greatly:

·         Increasing the amount of natural light – The graphic design studio for example is permanently lit with artificial lighting; vast amounts of strip lights are used for this purpose which for most days of the year shouldn’t need to be turned on at all.  By changing the glass used in the roofing for example would increase how much light comes into the room; currently the glass isn’t fully transparent, blocking much of the suns light.

Further improvements could also be made by changing the layout of the studio, currently the exterior wall has the crit rooms against it, moving these to the opposite side of the room and installing windows down this end of the building would no doubt increase lighting.

Other than saving energy by removing the need for permanent lights this would have the added benefit of making the studio more pleasant with natural sunlight shining into the room and for many days of the year making it better lit than it is now.

·         Turning off lighting – the studio will always need to be well lit, so lighting is still essential, however energy could be saved by installing motion sensors that will automatically turn off the lights when no one is in the room, this would mean no energy being wasted lighting the room when no one is using it.

·         Heating – another change I would investigate more would be how the temperature is controlled within the studio, this would take the form of trying to improve the insulation of the room; for example there is no ceiling to speak of in the studio room, all heat within the room simply rises and leaks into the rest of the building, containing the room would improve this.

I would also suggest looking at how the room is heated during winter months, perhaps having a timer system would mean the room is not being heated when it is not being used, the same system could be used during summer months for the air conditioning.

Recycling - Even though I have noticed that we have recycling bins in our room for paper there doesn't seem to be any for any other materials. Since we are graphic design students we use a number of different materials for our projects from card to plastic. When we finish with these materials we end up throwing them in the normal bin in the room when we could be throwing them in the allotted recycling bin if there was one. I think this should be taken into consideration considering how much card and plastic we throw away not only for projects but at lunch to in the classroom there are a lot of bottles that can be recycled along with sweet wrappers and cardboard sandwhich boxes. These are the reasons why I think recycling should be upgraded in Henrion building and throughout the university

·         Electronic Equipment – finally, the studio is home to several desktop computers and a printer, in order to save electricity and save energy I would like to see these being switched off when they aren’t being used – or if this is not feasible, setting up a sleep mode that would initiate after a period of inactivity.

 Audit Continued - Jordan

·       Paper Sustainability - One aspect of studio work, which is not sustainable, is throwing away paper cut-offs and any paper with unused work or designs on it. This could be improved by reusing as much paper as possible or recycling it however the main reason this happens in the studio is because of convenience. If recycling was convenient and there was a designated place to put paper/card for recycling close to or in the studio this would improve this issue. Most students don’t want to carry around useless pieces of scrap paper along with everything else until they can recycle it or waste time doing it whilst working. This fits into the recycling audit discussed earlier in the audit.

·       Printing - Printing also affects the environment because of the chemicals used in inks and considering the amount of things printed throughout the course this is another aspect that affects the environment and the sustainability of the University. There are also ways we could improve this such as limiting the amount of printing we do or the size we print on to. We could also use inks which are less damaging to the environment. 

Roll-Out Veg Mat

I found a design for a roll-out veg mat by Chris Chapman. "Home food production can be strenuous work, often taking hours of labour to set up and maintain. This aspect of home horticulture was one of the main complaints of large unit families who have little or no spare time throughout their day. What was needed was a simple, fun solution which could encourage families and individuals to grow there own food saving them money and of course the environment. The final design solution was a simple nutriant enriched corrugated cardboard seed mat. Each season a new mat becomes available for purchase, allowing individuals to produce a constant year round harvest of fresh home grown vegetables with little labour time and minimal effort."

 

 I quite like the idea, first off I like how everything is pretty much layed out for you in an easy and clear way to understand. And I think its pretty cool that a new roll comes out every new season so that the consumer has a variety of things that grow in different climates throughout the year. It's quite interactive so the whole family can get involved which I think this product is aimed at and its environmentally friendly because it is made out of recyclable material.

 

 Here is the website : http://www.packagingoftheworld.com/2010/01/roll-out-veg-mat.html

By Hakim

Here! Sod Air Asia

I came across this really cool t-shirt packaging design from Here! Sod for Air Asia. The design has won the gold award from the Pentawards.

In my opinion I quite like the design the way its packaged looks like an aeroplane and when the package is opened the wings turn into a hanger. The packaging itself helps the consumer because if they dont have any hangers left the product comes with one so you don't have to worry. I also like the simple design on the t-shirt it reminds me of a manga style comicthe way it is drawn.

here is the link to the website : http://www.packagingoftheworld.com/2011/03/here-sod-air-asia.html

By Hakim

Nike Reuse a Shoe

an interesting concept that I hadnt heard of until now is the Nike "Reuse a Shoe" drive, where they encourage you to drop off your old worn out shoes at designated sites word wide that are then reused and recycled into "Nike Grind" a raw material used to make something new – like courts, running tracks, playgrounds, synthetic turf infill and even new Nike products.

I like this idea as its from a large worldwide business with considerable brand power, when someone like Nike push an idea it is bound to create a lot of attention and following which in this instance can only be a good thing.

Since the program was started Nike have collected 25 million pairs of shoes to be reused 

http://nikereuseashoe.co.uk/

Wayne

60BAG

'60BAG' is made out of flax-viscose fabric, which is produced with flax finer industrial waste meaning that it doesn't use any natural resources and requires minimal energy during production. This innovative material allows the bag to naturally decompose 60 days after being discarded, therefore they don't require being recycled (which can be expensive) or require disposal in landfills.

Website: http://www.60bag.com/

By Jordan

Eco paper made from elephant poo

A big problem for anyone in the design industry to become more sustainable and environmentally responsible is the amount of paper they consume. One option would be to go down the recycled paper route - but how about choosing a paper stock that is wholly organic?

Thats exactly what this product is, created from Elephant poo this paper is completely tree free and in fact will surely have a positive impact on its immediate environment since it removes dung waste and turns it into really nice paper stock.

Its certainly quirky and a talking point if you were to use it but I think it is a fantastic idea, the final product has a really nice look to it that in many ways is nicer than clean white papers.

Wayne

Dell Bamboo Packaging

Computer Brand Dell have recently started to us bamboo to package and protect some of their portable devices. Bamboo is a very sustainable resource due to its fast growth rate of around a metre in 24 hours. Dell say that by the end of 2012 two-thirds of their portable device products will be shipped in bamboo.

Website: http://content.dell.com/us/en/gen/d/corp-comm/bamboo-packaging

By Jordan