Whether it’s designing Eco furniture, chairs, tables, lighting, flooring, wall coverings, etc. for your eco home, the Product Designer must consider the environmental impact of their product from start to finish by thinking of its lifecycle.

Raw Materials To Use

When a designer decides on the raw materials to use, there are a number of key issues to address and questions to ask.

For example, are the materials specified in the design, less polluting or biodegradable, can they be recycled or re-used at the end of life?  Could less materials be used, or a simpler design be employed, to reduce impact and lower costs or could an alternative energy source be substituted, using natural resources?

Packaging & Distribution

How many times have you purchased a product with inappropriate, heavy, bulky packaging which is difficult to open and dispose of?  The eco designer will be looking to protect the product adequately with less materials, or make the packaging returnable or re-useable to reduce impacts.

Consideration will also be given as to how, and how far the product is being transported to the customer, could the distance be reduced or could shrinking or lightening the product be the answer perhaps?

Customer Use

A vital question to guage the success of an eco friendly product is whether the customer can use the product in such a way that it reduces its impact on the environment.  Here, the durability of the product, whether it is easy to repair to prevent replacement or can be upgraded or sold on comes into play.

End Of Product Life

What happens to the product at the end of its life is of paramount importance to the designer.  One of the main issues is whether it can be sold on, re-used or recycled rather than end up in landfill.

If the designer can produce a product which ticks any, or all of these boxes, it is mission accomplished and can, undoubtedly, lead to some highly innovative, original, spectacularly creative  eco interiors being produced which will benefit us for years to come.