ICIS NeWS

Editorial

Sustainable Production and Consumption

• SCORE! The Project, the Workshop
• From Waste to Wisdom

Social Sustainability

• The Oldest Profession becomes Wiser
• Rules of the Game; Prostitution and Sport Events

Design and Innovation

• Are Green Cars Financially Sustainable?

Ethical Consumption

• Well-Fashioned
• The Sustainability Blogosphere
• The Compactors

Icis Update

• Designer Development Project
• ISL
• EcoDesign Pilot Project

Events

• ICIS Debate: Who Should Take Responsibility for Sustainability?

Editorial

Dear Friend,

Welcome to the May edition of the ICIS E-news! This month sees summer finally reaching Scandinavia and the Secretariat busy preparing new classes, courses and a brand spanking new professional development programme here at ICIS. The ISL (Innovation, Sustainability and Leadership) programme has finally been launched, offering design and other creative professionals the opportunity to enhance and develop their personal and professional lives, become leaders in their field and meet the challenge of sustainability. Sounds like a tall order, but ICIS has a track record of empowering professionals with new skills and knowledge, innovative thinking, sustainable practice and global networking. Read more about the ISL programme here and previous year’s development programmes here.

This issue looks at the role of the consumer in pushing and pulling sustainability in various ways. From ethical consumption to sustainability blogging, it seems clear that challenge of transitioning towards sustainable production and consumption needs to incorporate the consumer perspective if it is to actually happen. After all, there is no point creating eco-designed goods or product-service systems if no-one wants to buy them.

We also cover a couple of stories about prostitution; what’s that got to do with sustainability? Well, it’s a human rights issue that we feel quite strongly about. Sustainability is also about people’s welfare, not just the environment or economy. While it’s true that prostitution is an age-old phenomenon, we have a responsibility to ensure that there is individual agency or choice involved in being a prostitute and that there are also possibilities for changing ‘profession’ if desired. Like all sustainability/human rights issues its one that is riddled with complexity . . .

In our ICIS update, we outline our current projects. For more information about any of our activities, please contact us, see details below.

Otherwise, we hope you have a great month!

Best wishes from the ICIS Secretariat

 Sustainable Production and Consumption

• Knowing the SCORE!

Since the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, there has been a growing realisation that more sustainable patterns of production and consumption are needed in order to achieve sustainable development. The Jo’burg Plan of Implementation called on countries to develop a decade-long action plan to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production or SCP.

The SCORE! Project acts as one of the central support structures for the UN’s 10 year Framework of Programs for Sustainable Consumption and Production.

In a series of workshops and conferences, the network aims to analyse the state of the art in SCP research, and promote cases of (radical) sustainable consumption for the mobility, agro-food and energy use sectors.

The first SCORE! workshop took place at the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen, Denmark on the 20^th and 21^st April. Participants were mainly researchers in the fields of sustainable design, business, consumer behaviour and system innovation brought together to cross-fertilise ideas and gain conceptual insights in how radical (as opposed to incremental) change can drive SCP. Participants presented high-level theoretical papers in their field which we then discussed by researchers from a different field, creating what they called a ‘positive’ confrontation across traditional disciplines.

ICIS attended the workshop and the Sustainable Design session, which was attended by several well-known researchers including Ursula Tischner of econcept, Germany and Chris Ryan of RMIT, Australia. The discussion encompassed issues such as designers’ pivotal role as ‘incubators’ of creativity and sustainability, building adaptive capacity into design, and the need to move sustainable products and product service systems from niche to mass market.

The other sessions included Systems Innovation Policy, Business Management and Consumer Research.

The workshop format and discussions highlighted the need for a cross- or inter-disciplinary approach to the overarching them of SCP and underscored the crucial role that designers can have in both ‘pushing’ sustainability (towards consumers) and ‘pulling’ it (from producers).

Full proceedings are available to download from www.score-network.org.

From Waste to Wisdom

fW2W, ‘from Waste to Wisdom’ is a innovative educational initiative organised by the nowhere foundation and its academic partners to create a pan-European collaborative and innovative platform, ’where business, education and the creative industries can come together to address some of the most pressing economic, environmental and social challenges of our time – issues such as increasing consumerism, overexploitation of resources and climate change.”

fW2W is a small team of designers and educators who seek to collaborate with industry and commerce to create a shift in the role of design to become a force for change. The objective is to promote the use of sustainability criteria in the design of products, concepts, systems and lifestyles, in order to raise the profile of sustainable design and stimulate more responsible patterns of behaviour in the marketplace.

The project activities are based around an awards competition with related conferences, exhibits, a research/image bank and the development of learning materials for schools and colleges, on a two year cycle.

Like ICIS, fW2W attempts to bring together business, design and educators to work together and find new, innovation solutions to the challenge of sustainability.

Read more about the project and the nowhere foundation on http://www.nowherefoundation.org/

Social Sustainability

• The Oldest Profession becomes Wiser

A new project in Germany is retraining prostitutes to become care workers for elderly people.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia is using {euro}1m (£0.7m; $1.2m) of local and European Union money to try to get sex trade workers off the street and into care homes.

Heinz Oberlach, from Germany's Federal Labour Agency, said that using prostitutes as care workers is "very logical," as the nursing home sector is seriously understaffed and has some 6400 vacancies nationwide—despite a national unemployment rate of 12% in Germany. Reasons for the shortage include a recent clampdown on Eastern Europeans working illegally as care workers and the reluctance of Germans to take on the work.

Rita Kuehn is from Diakone Westfalen, a Protestant welfare programme that runs nursing homes across the country and that is behind the novel retraining scheme. She believes that prostitutes make excellent carers as they have “good people skills, aren’t easily disgusted, and have zero fear of physical contact.”

“These characteristics can set former prostitutes apart from trainee nurses,” she said.

She added, “However, nursing home bosses will have to be discreet so that elderly gentlemen don’t try to get more than they are paying for.”

Diakone Westfalen plans to offer 30 prostitutes between the ages of 20 and 40 the chance to train for a new career, with two years of courses and vocational training.

A former prostitute, Gisela Zohren, 56, is helping to get the project started. She works at the Midnight Mission, a help centre for sex workers in Dortmund. She says life is getting tougher on the streets, and at least half of the women she meets want to leave the sex business.

Ms Zohren estimates that at least 50,000 prostitutes work in North Rhine-Westphalia alone, many having come from Eastern Europe and South America, as well as many locals who are forced to walk the streets because of a lack of other employment options. She said “The job situation is miserable. No one can make any money any more, and the prostitution market is flooded.”

Ms Zohren left the streets in the late 1990s to become and care workers before returning to help the women she left behind. When I started looking after 90year old men instead of young men, I found there were many similarities. Most men just want a nanny. All I really had to change was the outfit.”

And she found that looking after women was just as natural. “Prostitution taught me to listen and to convey a feeling of safety,” she said. “Isn’t that exactly what is missing so much in care for elderly people?”

To try to alleviate the concerns of any potential employers, Ms Zohren and other project coordinators are to go on a road around the state in the coming weeks.

She said: “the people we talk to need to realise that prostitution can offer valid qualifications.”

Source:
British Medical Journal, Vol 332, 25^th March 2006 www.bmj.com

• Rules of the Games – Prostitutes and large-scale Sport Events

It’s a fact that wherever men gather en masse to watch or participate in big sport events, there will be an increase in the number of prostitutes and brothels around the venues. The forthcoming World Cup in Germany this year has already attracted some controversy when the Swedish Equal Opportunities ombudsman put pressure on the Swedish football team to withdraw from the event in protest at the vast numbers of prostitutes flocking to Germany to ply their trade.

The suggestion was rejected by the Swedish Football Association, however, it brought to light the issue of forced prostitution that the burgeoning sex industry encompasses. Over one million men a day visit brothels legally in Germany, but business is expected to increase between 40 and 60 per cent during the tournament. Berlin is already home to Europe’s biggest brothel, constructed in time for kick-off. But, German police are desperate to clamp down on slave-prostitutes, smuggled from eastern Europe and are targeting their pimps.

Members of the European Parliament has demanded in a resolution that German authorities set up telephone hotlines, safe houses and legal aid be set up to help the many women expected to be forced into working as prostitutes during the World Cup. The idea is that the resolution will also encourage authorities in all EU Countries to raise awareness among the general public and sports people about forced prostitution in the hope it may curb demands for such sexual services.

Sources:
The Telegraph “Swedes want no dirty play as vice girls descend on the World Cup” 16^th April 2006

Design and Innovation

• Are Green Cars Financially Sustainable?

Eco-conscious motorists should do their homework and their sums before switching to greener cars, consumer watchdog Which? advises. It has released a checklist for drivers on what to look out for and an update on how far manufacturers have come in offering affordable solutions to high CO2 emissions.

The list advises motorists to consult colour-coded A-G labels in new-car showrooms. These look similar to energy labels used on household appliances and show fuel economy and CO2 emissions. Car buyers should question whether their prospective purchase has CO2 emissions below the 170g/km average.

Which? suggests hybrid cars and alternative fuels as a serious option to reduce harmful exhaust fumes, but has concerns over availability and costs of both green cars and green fuels. Car-buyers are advised to check for fuel availability before buying an alternative fuel car. Some fuels, such as bio-ethanol, are still in their infancy so finding a filling station may not always be easy.

Cars like the Saab 9-5 BioPower, costing from 21,867 pounds, can run on E85 bio-ethanol or unleaded petrol but fuel availability means the choice is often taken out of the equation. "One of the main barriers against adopting alcohol-powered cars at present is the lack of places to fill up on E85 fuel," the Which? report said.

Cost is also a factor. In March, 10 Morrison's stores in East Anglia and the West Country started selling E85 for 2p a litre less than petrol. But sector analysts say bio-ethanol needs to be cheaper than this, as fuel economy is around a third lower than when the car is run on petrol.

Which? insists the government needs to introduce greater incentives to convince private and company car drivers to switch to bio-fuels, something already done to great effect in Sweden.

Electricity and hydrogen are hotly tipped as the fuels of the future. However, electric cars are limited by a lack of speed and range and are environmentally friendly only when charged with cleanly generated electricity. The only electric car sold in the UK at the moment is the tiny G-Wiz city car.

Hydrogen remains a tempting green fuel, since the only by-product is water. Several car manufacturers have developed prototype hydrogen cars but none is yet commercially available.

Initially it is thought the price tag will be steep -- hydrogen fuel cells are still regarded as about 10 times too expensive to be viable. Cheaper road tax and congestion charge exemption might act as sweeteners for those first in line for the next generation of green cars, the magazine suggests.

Which? picks out the Toyota Prius 1.5 VVTi T-Spirit Hybrid as the greenest petrol car available in the UK, emitting less CO2 than even the cleanest diesel super-mini. A hybrid family car that uses both a petrol engine and an electric motor, the Prius cuts CO2 emissions by 44 percent versus a similarly sized 1.8-litre Toyota Avensis auto.

It saves money at the pumps, too. In an independent trial the Prius averaged 45 to 50 miles per gallon. However potential buyers may baulk at the current asking price of the Prius T-Spirit hybrid at 20,270 pounds.

Source:
Planet Ark, http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/36260/story.htm

Ethical Consumption

• Well-Fashioned

There has been a recent proliferation in the media about eco-fashion and “Green is the New Black” etc. We would like to think that this media coverage represents a sea change towards sustainability in the fashion industry but its also possible that its yet another trend for some players in the fashion industry.

However, British eco-designer, Rebecca Earley has recently curated an exhibition at the Crafts Council in London that examines some of the approaches to sustainability in the fashion industry. "Well Fashioned: Eco style in the UK" (until June 4) illustrates the move away from the frumpy granola eco-style towards wearable and covetable sustainable designs.

"This is about good design, not products that shout 'eco' - and lots of designers don't want to create a green gang," says Earley, explaining her "long involvement" from fabric student in the 1990s at Central Saint Martins school, when she became aware that "everything I produced had a limited life span," to creating her own line and introducing her ideas to the academic world as a research fellow at Chelsea College of Art and Design.

The young talents in "Well Fashioned" include Terra Plana's recycled, quilted flowered boots, Howie's organic cotton T-shirts and recycled jeans from Red Mutha. Although most were small traders, (American Apparel being a notable exception), the use of alternative fabrics and sustainable production techniques should be an inspiration to mainstream retailers too.

The exhibition has quite a broad scope, with inspiration/illustration panels depicting British sustainable fashion practices since the war-time campaign of “Make Do and Mend” which encouraged citizens to repair their clothing during times of textile shortages.

"It is also about theory - engaging with people's deeper needs, their sense of belonging, of protection and their emotional attachment to clothing," says Earley, citing the designer Benjamin Shine's multifunctional clothes and her own collection, recycled from the wardrobe of a woman she knew.

There are textile books from the Chelsea College of Art’s TED (Textile Environment Design) resource illustrating the wealth of sustainable textiles now available.

With more space, the show might have paid dues to Katharine Hamnett, the British designer who took up the fair trade cause at the end of the "greed-is-good" 1980s and has developed a pioneering fashion label based on ecology and the environment. Or it might have been widened to include the Danish designers, whom Earley describes as "so much more eco- aware." It cannot tackle the wide-ranging movement in America, or even Edun, founded in Dublin in 2005.

Earley's focus is on young independent designers, each with an ecological point of view and modern, rather than homespun, clothes. For example, a shinyAzo-free Ekotex jacket from Ciel by Sarah Ratty has an urban cool; and Enamore's clothes made of "cannabis Sativa," or hemp, are streamlined and stylish. If cotton is a favorite, with the Juste label working for fair trade in Africa, there are also fabric surprises. Emma Newberg, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, has produced flowery dresses with cape collars made from recycled plastic polyethylene vinyl acetate.

In fact, synthetic fabrics can be as eco-friendly as natural fiber, with polyester offering "positive benefits" from its low laundry demands. Earley has even discovered a technique of dyeing using paper blotters to create minimum effluents and less water waste.

How realistic is the idea of turning the fashion industry green? Earley admits that using low-impact dyes "is a craft technique; it can't translate into industry." She also believes that most designers do not even think about their fabrics and how and where they are made. But she says that, while everyone focuses on manufacturing, the industry needs "conceptual ways of thinking so that clothes function better when you get home."

Earley, working with other green groups, has already staged eco-shows in Paris and New York. The day that a big brand endorses eco-principles and makes it a selling point will be a prized moment for planet fashion - and planet Earth.