T2: Life cycle analysis videos.

Greenfly

• This program helps us as designers look at our products in a different way and look at the environmental impacts the product will have.
•  It also looks at alternatives for the product we are designing to limit the impacts we have on the environment.
• Looks at end of use of each product and give a final report with statistics on the product.

Whole system and lifecycle thinking

• We as designer should look at the product at a whole system to fully define the problem
• We need to then look at the life cycle and assessing the biggest impacts and minimizing them.
•  Brainstorming helps come up with many solutions that may help solve the problem at hand and may produce many more problems along the way. We take the best solutions out.

Improving product lifetime

•   To improve a products lifetime is to design sustainably and by getting the most out of the materials and energy.
• Products go through a lifecycle- from raw materials – manufacture – use – eventual disposal.
• To maximise a products life we need to extend the use period and have the products lifecycle and entirely closed loop, never needing any virgin materials or causing landfills.

Introduction to light weighting and material reduction

• Products that use less material has less environmental impact. This is because the materials needed are less so we are saving our natural resources and reducing landfills.
• By changing the products structure its can lessen the amount of materials being used.
• Without light weighting costs will be high and will consist of too much unnecessary material.

Green material selection

• Choosing the right sustainable material would be abundant and non-toxic
•  It wouldn't also require heaps of energy and resources to be manufactured
• The material also would have good end of life options and wouldn’t drive costs up.

    Energy efficient design 

•      To be energy efficient we need to look at choosing the right technology and energy sources.
•      The rate in which we use energy is measured in watts. Energy is measured in joules or kilowatt-hours.
•      The power source determines the environmental impacts we have.

Looking at all these videos they have taught me to look at products from start to finish. To truly understand something the whole thing needs to be looked at and all its components within it so that we as designers can do whatever is in our power to reduce our impact on the earth. This is important as we have responsibilities to our consumers and to the world we live in to produce products that are of high quality and sustainable at the same time.