Educator and consultant Jane Penty: Climate change is the biggest creative challenge yet

Lesson 2: Material literacy is critical

“Designers need to have a new material literacy. They’ve always had to have a palette of materials to work from when they design. In the old days, they needed to understand the physical performance of a material, its visual qualities, its semantics or socio-cultural significance. Now, we need another layer: what are the environmental impacts of the material?

McDonough and Braungart [authors of the influential 2002 book Cradle to Cradle] talk about this. Designers must choose materials and decide which ones to exclude from their palette, based on characteristics such as toxicity, for instance. So just as a designer knows the technical characteristics of a material, they are starting to understand the environmental characteristics as well. For instance, some plastics are now made from wood, which means it will naturally be lower carbon. But a designer still must ask themselves: Do I need this thing to be made of plastic at all and where will it end up?

No matter what the material, all products have an impact. This is why material literacy needs to be combined with ideas like designing for longevity and repairability. If you have something that lasts twice as long, you have halved its impact. Ultimately, reducing our consumption is the best thing we can do for the planet.”

Lesson 3: Good design should close the consumer value-action gap

“Survey after survey shows that environmental friendliness or social sustainability is not the main factor that people look at when they buy a product. There’s this gap between what people believe in and what they do. For students, that’s when the penny drops: as designers, we can help to close that gap.

We can create behaviour change by making the most sustainable product also the easiest option. If it isn't the easiest option, you're going to miss out on reaching many people.

Climate change is the biggest creative challenge that humankind is facing, and designers have a real role to play in it. My strapline for students is ‘if what you're designing isn't a tool for sustainable living, then we shouldn't be designing it.’ It was Victor Papanek who said that designers were possibly – after marketeers and advertisers – the second most dangerous profession for the environment. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.”

Lesson 4: The fundamentals don’t change

“I’m constantly learning from my students, and there is so much material innovation happening. But once you’ve taken that deep dive you realise the fundamental principles and design strategies don’t change.

First, you want to keep your environmental impact to a minimum, so you want to ensure circularity or repairability for instance. But then also, you’re thinking about social impact: does what you design bring social value? Are you making sure that the design brings maximum benefit to all the stakeholders? And lastly, on the business side: are you making sure that your bottom line is not solely about company profits, but also takes into account people and planet?

You must see it as your mission to make your role as a designer meaningful and you need to keep upping that bar. And when you up the bar, innovation happens.”

FACT FILE: Jane Penty

• Jane Penty graduated from the Royal College of Arts, working for design consultancies before becoming an educator at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
• Working both as a sustainable design consultant, practitioner and educator, Penty’s primary investigation asks: How can the products we design add social, environmental and economic value rather than simply do less harm?
• Penty’s textbook Product Design and Sustainability provides design students, practitioners and educators with the knowledge to integrate sustainable strategies into their practice.