This is not a book about environmentalism. It will not tell you to use soy ink and CFLs to make your studio green. This is a book about sustainability, a distinction of utmost importance.

This distinction takes us down the road of environmentalism but also brings along it’s siblings social and financial change. These tag-alongs are necessary because if real solutions are to take hold it’s not good enough to find the “most green” alternative. The questions of product life cycle, usability/adaptability and marketability have to be asked. Is an alternative really better if it contributes to another problem by virtue of its source materials, or no one can use it, or if no one will buy it? These questions are addressed in this book, alongside how to sell them to the people writing the checks. This gives this book the distinction of advocating practicality and sustainability (even if they are one and the same).

Nathan Shedroff, is chair of the MBA in Design Strategy program at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco. So it is no surprise that this is one of the most practical books on implementing sustainability into business practices out there. It focuses on making your existing processes, products and services more sustainable, certainly there is a encyclopedic gathering of environmental frameworks, but the real genius of this book is the focus on integrating these with what already exists.

If I have any complaints it’s one of the complaints I have about a many of the books from Rosenfeld Media. The pasion that marks the introduction and conclusion of the book seems to be missing from much of what is in-between. I’m not sure why, but this seems to be a characteristic from this publisher. The exhaustive amount information may have something to do with it as well as the separation of real-world examples from the main text through the use of side bars. But this does leave you with a feeling of wanting more, and not in a good way.

It’s hard to accept any thing other than the ideal solution, but experience tells us the opportunities to completely throw something out and start from scratch are rare. One of the real takeaways from this book is not only that design has helped to create the problem, but by actively railing against producers design has not helped the problem. William McDonough and Michael Braungart say we shouldn’t settle for the least harmful alternative, and they are right. But we still need to work with producers to make change, Design is the Problem gets this.

Design Is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable
by Nathan Shedroff
Publisher: Rosenfeld Media; 1ST edition (2009)
ISBN-10: 1933820004
ISBN-13: 978-1933820002
Pages: 352