Design consultant Daniel Liden is on a mission to demystify sustainability. He tells Paul Fairclough why a positive approach is so important, and how to help designers make better and more confident decisions about incorporating sustainable materials
OnOffice: Is there some confusion in the design community about the meaning of sustainability?
Daniel Liden: This is one of the reasons I wanted to write the book. It was difficult to make sense of information from material suppliers and brands, and I found myself in weird arguments with other designers about what is the most sustainable material. Think of recycling: because it’s a simple concept, it’s easy for designers to use it in a vague way. Sometimes there’s no malicious intent, although there is greenwashing out there. But vague language about recycling and other sustainability concepts opens up different interpretations.
It’s important to be clear about what the material is and where it comes from. We could both go out in Copenhagen or London and find loads of clothing marketed as recycled. But so little ‘recycled’ clothing is made with actual textiles taken apart and put back into production. A lot is made with recycled plastic bottles. If we want to reduce confusion and uncertainty in the design community, it’s important to be clear about these things. Once we have those insights out in the open, we can start to question, challenge and identify what the solutions might be.
OO: Is there such a thing as a truly sustainable material or are we looking for the least-bad option?
DL: I would think about it, as we should strive to find the best possible option. There’s been a tendency within the context of sustainability to say that putting products into the world is a bad thing. So, the book is concerned partly with trying to focus on the process as a positive action. It’s called Better Things after all, so it’s my hope that it will lead to designers designing better things.
OO: What are the advantages to designers in making materials their starting point?
DL: The boring answer is that if you design something without taking materials into account, it’s difficult to shoehorn materials into the existing idea later; if materials are an afterthought, it’s harder to get the most out of them. But also, it’s actually fun to let materials lead the way, as a way of working and as a thought experiment. Sustainability considerations force you to think differently about how you design. It’s an interesting time to be a designer. You could take the most mundane object – paper tissues, say – and if you are forced to design it with a new material, it turns everything upside down.
OO: What new materials are exciting you right now?
DL: Lately, I’m really into coatings. For years we’ve been told that coatings are bad and we should avoid them. I find this area refreshing because there’s a lot going on in terms of suppliers offering coatings that are made with better raw materials and being developed not to negatively impact recycling, for example. For me, having been so invested in not using coatings for a long time, it opens up a new world, which is always fun.
OO: What can designers take away from your book?
DL: I hope the book will be useful in a very practical way. It helps in laying out alternatives and building the environmental case for using a specific material. Some markets – the EU, for example – have incentives or ‘punishments’ to try and force brands to use certain materials or risk being taxed or not allowed in those markets. So, you have to connect the dots as a designer between specific material benefits and bigger societal, political and economic things going on. And if you are able to do that and talk confidently about why you’ve made certain decisions and how they count towards these policies, you have a better chance of pushing things in a braver direction.
Better Things: Materials for Sustainable Product Design by Daniel Liden is published by Laurence King
Images courtesy of Daniel Liden
This story was originally featured in OnOffice 166, Spring 2024. Discover similar stories by subscribing to our weekly newsletter here
