I saw that someone else had posted about greenerdesign.com so I decided to check it out. This is one of the first articles I found, and it immediately made me think about a lot of things regarding paper use, design work, and our generation: “Post it notes: Available in any color as long as it’s green” (http://greenerdesign.com/news/2009/05/15/post-it-notes-green)
First off I had never heard of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and just thought that all paper products were wasteful. I had no idea that ever forests had varying degrees of good/bad and certifications. I explored the SFI website a bit and found this: “Its philosophy is that healthy, productive forests yield immense environmental, social and economic benefits, and mitigate the impacts of climate change by absorbing and storing carbon in trees, soil and biomass.” And that there are standards that address everything “from water quality and biodiversity to harvesting and regeneration.” I’ll be interested to look into this further.
I find the conflicting interests of our generation so funny. We hate that kids no longer read books and rarely write handwritten letters and are so distracted by the computer and other gaming devices. But with the benefit of being so technologically savvy we will be able to adjust to things like Yahoo!’s proposed note-taking system, which allows you to take notes directly on webpages, eliminating your need to open up Word or even a paper notebook to take notes and copy URLs on. (This is a product that I saw at the Cool Products Expo.) Our generation will also be able to adjust to reading books on things like the Kindle and waste less paper and other resources in the process. And we’ve grown up with devices – and services – like the iPod which eliminate such waste in relation to CDs. (As discussed in the Green Marketing Myopia article). And, our generation will be more receptive and accepting of these “services” that are going to start popping up in all areas of our life due to their much more green nature. In so many ways I am thankful for the tremendous technology of our generation, though I do enjoy my paperback books and handwritten letters. I wonder when our generation will completely phase these out or when conserving the environment will necessitate that we do so.
In design we use all sorts of interactive tools to communicate our ideas. But will anyting every take the place of Post-its and drawings during brainstorming sessions? Theres so much value in the quick rendering abilities and what they communicate. I feel like there are similar areas where paper will always be used – and for these places I am happy we have such certifications as the SFI. But I certainly hope that the government can stop wasting “$440 million on unnecessary print-outs” as the article cites.
