| BEFORE |
AFTER |
THE
IMPROVEMENTS |
|
|
The
Smart car is lighter than a conventional car so uses less material and
less fuel. An additional bonus is that all of the external panels
can be easily changed, allowing for the colour and style to be upgraded. |
| Conventional
car |
Smart
car |
|
<AWAITING IMAGE> |
The
new product uses muscle power rather than electricity generated from
fossil fuels and keeps the user fit (!) |
| Electric
razor |
Wind-up shaver |
|
|
Katie's
lamp not only looks good in her bedroom, it also meets
lots of sustainable design criteria. It’s a lovely example of social
design because slides of her family were used to make the shade, it’s economically sustainable,
costing very little whilst maintaining skills. It's also environmental as it uses a wide range of
objects collected from
friends, family and recycling bins e.g. old photographic slides, a shower
rail, a mobile phone charger, washers and a coat hanger. The only thing
she bought was the LED bulb. |
| Conventional lamp |
Katie’s
lamp |
|
|
Petrol
or diesel are swapped for muscle power. This keeps the user fit and
eliminates toxic fumes. |
| Conventional
petrol mower |
Pedal powered
mower |
|
|
Walls built
of rammed earth, without using cement, have a much lower
environmental impact than
concrete or brick walls because far less energy is used in their
construction. The earth has to have the right proportion of clay which
bonds it together when compressed. The Information Centre and Shop at the
Centre for Alternative Technology has rammed earth walls which
support the weight of the roof and are part of the passive solar heating
of the building, as they store heat. Because they are internal
walls they do not need to be rendered but external walls would be. There
are thousands of buildings in the UK with earth walls, many of them more
than a hundred years old. |
| Conventional
walls |
Rammed
earth |
