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The Challenge of the Green

Author(s): Fredrik Wildhagen


Source: Design Issues, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 28-32
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511768
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TheChallengeof the Green
Fredrik
Wildhagen

Thefollowing paperby the late FredrikWildhagenwas originallyprepared


for a conference,Discovering Design, held at the University of Illinois,
Chicago,November4-6, 1990. It embodiesWildhagen'sreflectionson the
reluctanceof Scandinavian designers to actively involve themselveswith
issues of the environment. Although Wildhagen confined his remarksin
this paper to the Scandinaviansituation, his observationson the difficul-
ties which designers in that region had in formulating a response to the
global challengeof environmentaldecay addressa largerproblemof global
dimensions.Designers todayare being calledupon to do morethanprovide
attractive casings for industrial products. As social problems intensify,
they have the opportunityto takea leadershiprole in addressingthem.
Such was Wildhagen'svision of design. Beforehis untimely death
in 1992, Wildhagenheadedthe Departmentof Theoryand History at the
State Schoolof Craftsand Design in Oslo, wherehe hadformerlybeen the
Rector. His concernfor green issues was only one manifestation of his
activism. Although he workedprincipallyas a design historian and critic,
writing articles, books, and exhibition catalogues, he remained deeply
engaged with issues of practice and participatedfrequentlyin meeting of
designers.We arepublishing Wildhagen'spaperin Design Issues because
we believeit admirablyexemplifiesthe possibilitiesof bringing the critical
reflectionof those who are not designers to bearon the practicalproblems
of everydaylife.
VictorMargolin

Over the course of the last few years, I've had the opportunity to
examine green issues in the design context, although my experi-
ences are somewhat limited. But the green issue itself, and design-
ers' responses to it, have led me to some observations that I would
like to put forward on this occasion.
In 1990, the young Danish designer Niels Peter Flint made
the following statement: "Designers can be dangerous, even though
we do not intend to be. We know very little about the consequences
that the processes and materials we use in our work may have on
the environment. To change this, it is imperative that we provide the
designer with adequate information regarding the usage of these,
and to find environmentally friendly substitutes." Flint and his
Copenhagen-based international group called 02 are currently
producing a Manualfor SustainableDesign.
Flint is one of the few Scandinavian designers to take the
challenge of the green seriously, surprising given that the design
profession is supposed to be avant-garde, a front runner for advo-

?DCopyright
1995Leen3Mannila
28 DesignIssues:Volume
11,Number3 Autumn
1995
cating new ideas. This paradox is my point of departure. My refer-
ences are mostly drawn from the Nordic countries, a region where
one would expect the designer's attitude towards green issues to be
particularly strong. On the other hand, the issues are very much on
the agenda all over the Nordic region, making the design field's
silence even more peculiar. However, there are some universities,
industries, and public bodies, that do take environmental issues
seriously.
For example, Norsk Hydro, a major Scandinavian interna-
tional company has started to implement a multimillion dollar envi-
ronmental program. Volvo of Sweden has put a similar program
into operation which features a change to a water-based painting
process from the previous toxic lacquering. A Danish textile
company has released green cotton products based on a nonpollut-
ing process to obtain shrinkage and stabilization of material quality
without using formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals, and using
water-based color-prints on their T-shirts. A small rural furniture
factory has recently introduced a twofold environmental program
using only clean production processes and materials while stressing
the need to make products that create a user-friendly atmosphere
and clean environment. "Green Business" is a new concept in
Scandinavia, whose aim is to balance environmental issues with
sustainable growth, acknowledging the nonpolluting dimension as
an area of growth for business in the future. On the academic level,
multidisciplinary centers, such as the Center for Environment and
Sustainable Growth at the University of Oslo, Norway, are set up to
meet the new challenges in major universities all over Scandinavia.
Environmental efforts are being met with similar recognition
on the political level, even though activist groups such as Green-
peace and Bellona are concerned about the slow pace with which
policies are being implemented. Government environmental agen-
cies who are considerably funded and highly supported by
lawmakers act firmly against environmental violations. The United
Nations BrundtlandCommissionon the environment, which produc-
ed the report, "Our Common Future," was not unexpectedly
headed by the Norwegian premier.1 The comparatively strong
commitment to green issues in Scandinavia prompted Lester Brown
of the World Watch Institute in Washington, Q.C. to describe the
Nordic countries as environmental super powers in his inaugura-
tion of the Institute's European headquarters in Oslo in 1990.
As individuals, Scandinavians praise the particular quality of
the Nordic region clean air, clean water, clean virginal nature. This
attitude has recently come to the surface when trying to attract vaca-
tioners. There has been a definite shift of emphasis from the emula-
tion of the Mediterranean approach to a recognition of the North as
clean, wild, and rough. As the green issue has matured we have
1 OurCommon Future
(NewYork:Oxford somehow been able to recognize the inherent characteristics of
University
Press,1988)[Ed.note] Norden and have come out of the closet as such.

DesignIssues:Volume
11,Number
3 Autumn
1995 29
Given Scandinavia's background, it is surprising then that
the 02 group is atypical of the larger design field's commitment to
green issues, even if the rather grand scale NordForm '90 project in
Malmo, Sweden organized a one day seminar in August 1991 enti-
tled "Design for Ecology." The event did not, however, unleash a
debate or discussion in professional design forums in Scandinavia.
It is the lack of action and commitment from professional designers
which is the unexpected characteristic of the situation in Norden.
Let me support this point with a personal experience. By the
end of the 1988 biennial Nordic Designers' Conference in Arhus,
Denmark, it was decided that Norway would organize the 1990
conference. Having been invited to talk at the Arhus symposium, I
took the opportunity to suggest to the Norwegian representatives
the theme "Design and the Environment" as a possible frame for the
1990 conference, believing that the matter deserved serious consid-
eration. From my own work as a member of the international
Guzzini Design Memorandum group I had come to realize the diffi-
culties in coming to grips with this problem area in designerly
terms.2 To my surprise, I found that there was no particular interest
in or commitment to environmental issues. It is not that my design
colleagues were disinterested, but they felt bewildered by the
complexity and dimension of the issue despite the fact that they are
considered to be the avant-gardists of contemporary design.
Designers with whom I have had the opportunity to discuss
this matter since the Arhus conference, have all reacted more or less
along the same lines: the issue is overwhelming. They are far from
indifferent to the matter, but they have not managed to confront
green issues properly. Individually, some designers have given the
issue considerable time, but hardly ever been put on the agenda
organizationally. There are a few examples, a new light-structured
chair designed to save material or an energy-saving device and a
system for heating one-family houses by recycling garbage. The
latter, however, is more of an engineering project. Even though
much of this is due to lack of commissions from industry, the
designers must show their competence as they did a generation ago
or so when they showed the world what designers' could do.
When Henrik Wahlforss, one of Sweden's most distinguish-
ed product designers and a founder of the Ergonomi Design Group,
decided to leave his position and partnership in order to pursue
alternative and exploratory design solutions for a new and sound
society, ecologically balanced and nonpolluting, he was subject to a
damnatio memoria. His subsequent book Norden 2030, published in
1982, is a visionary designer's view of a society at peace with itself
based on ecology, recyclability and human values, while also recog-
2 See "TheGuzziniMemorandum: From the
nizing the industrial impetus, but not the average technological
of
to theProject
Ethicsof Projects
withanintroduction
Ethics," byFredrik
determinism.3 Instead he promoted sustainable growth and new
Wildhagen, DesignIssues5,1(Fall1988): ethical standards as governing forces in building the new-the
87-92.[Ed.note]. Norden of 2030.

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DesignIssues:Volume 1995
It is imperativeto stress that the lack of commitmentby the
Scandinavian design community does not imply that the green
perspective does not effect designers, but rather,that they find the
problemintangiblydifficultto handle. But how can we accountfor
such an attitude?Designers are taught to be problem solvers, the
leaders of the new, professionalscapableof envisioning and shap-
ing the unseen.
Historically,designers have proven themselves capable of
developing methods to approacha number of differentfields and
problems:production technology, economy, marketing,materials
technology, function, maintenance, aesthetics, ergonomics, and
product semantics in order to solve complex design projectsin a
convincing manner.So why then is there this hesitant and erratic
uncertaintywhen confrontedwith the challenge of the green?Is it
of a somewhat differentkind, belonging to anothersphere?Except
for the environmental issue, the other dimensions previously
mentionedare more or less directlyconnectedto the actualmaking
of product.
Designers are doers. They are good at making things that
work, thus they are directly concernedwith practicalissues. Their
training is done by projectratherthan by concept. The profession
has grown out of a craft-orientedtradition,ratherthan an academic
or conceptual one. Few designers have proved to be among the
most qualifiedto develop intangibletheoriesand value judgements
in ethical, philosophical or social terms-an ability necessary to
make sense of the green issue in termsof design.
However,the issue of social responsibilityin design, compa-
rable to the environmentalissue, has played a key role in design
practicein Norden over the past seventy years and has, over that
period of time,been continuouslyrefinedand debatedin the design
community. This social dimension of design was successfully
handledduringthe periodof ScandinavianModernism(1950-1970),
and the vitality of this social perspective is still easily found. For
example,the interestin designing for the handicapped,be it a knife
for the disabled,a wheelchairfor the injured,or fashionableclothes
for the disabled,testifiesto this inclination.
So why then doesn't the contemporarydesign community
resolvethese relatedissues today?Couldit be that they areunaware
of the difference between an ethical issue and a moral one?
Designers in Scandinaviaare rejectingthe notion of making moral
statementsin design, shunning naturaldyes, clean wool, comfort-
able shoes ratherthan fashionableones, the idyllic countrysidelife,
the Morristradition;this attitudepredominatedduring the genera-
tion following 1968. Designers today are becoming re-urbanized,
3 See Henrik
WahiforssandLeif0. enjoying neon lights, hard rock,night-life and disco. In their opin-
Pehrson,
NordenAr2O3O (Solnai ion the issue of the green might end up in moraldesign statements.
Tryckeriforlaget,
1982)lEd.note] Niels Peter Flint of 02 is aware of this difficulty,thus he strongly

DesignIssues:Volume
11, Number
3 Autumn
1995 31
emphasizes the need to treat green design projects with miles of
distance from the moral design projects of the 60s and 70s.
Let's take this change of attitude, this change of values or
ethical standards, a step further. Concurrently Nordic industry has
gone through a profound restructuring in terms of a technology and
internationalization. These changes have triggered a growing
demand for design services. Designers have finally enjoyed their
new position as recognized professionals by industry. In this
context, I will argue, they have lost faith in the old culturally-biased
critical approach to design for lack of sufficiently strong normative
ethical standards and thus accept, if not a kiss of death from indus-
try, at least a growing demand to adjust and fulfill, adapt and
design for industry's profit. If this is the case, then the lack of
commitment to green issues can be interpreted as a disconnection
from issues of a purely ethical kind, i.e., they are about to go
through a metamorphosis to become engineering-like at a time
when engineers are about to address ethical issues and discuss the
profession's social responsibilities.
The change of paradigm we are living through surely does
not make it easy to adjust to green issues. Challenges from electron-
ics, chips and Information Technology press hard on the poor
designer. The second rate green issue has to wait. The coming
ICSID4 world conference in Yugoslavia will put the environment on
the agenda.
But where else are green issues discussed and debated? In
the Western Europe? The United States? in Japan? In Germany? In
Italy, in Spain or France? There are traces of discussion, but nothing
more. Environment issues have become a challenge everywhere in
the sense that they question the myth of the designer as a radical
avant-garde professional at the same time as the real challenge, that
of solving environmental issues as pointed out in the United
Nations report "Our Common Future"-has taken a secondary
4 ICSIDis theacronym fortheInternational place in design thinking. Neither of them are convincing. Neither
Council Design
of Societiesof Industrial the designer's avant-garde role not the relegation of environmental
[Ed.note] problems to secondary status are convincing.

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