Either through materials selection and use, manufacturing practices or finishing techniques (or a combination of the three...or any number of other, smaller -- but no less important -- considerations), green designers are creating beautiful, useful, functional artifacts that leave a smaller footprint on the earth. But doesn't it all just create more stuff that we may or may not need? Isn't an opiate for people who want to be greener but don't want to actually do anything? Why is spotlighting (and encouraging) sustainable design important?
Just about everything we use, consume or see every day has been designed; designers have their hands on all of these things, far before we ever see them on the shelves. While there's a lot -- a lot -- of "design-for-design's-sake" out there, we want to encourage designers to take these formally disposable products, keep them beautiful and increase their relative sustainability. While it's true that we can't buy our way to sustainability, we feel it's important not only to showcase as many of the really striking, really modern examples of design as we can, but to use our green voice to encourage designers not yet on board to follow suit. If we can help convince the world (and the designers) that green can look good and is worth doing, there is no product that can't be made greener by this philosophy. The computer you're reading this on, the keyboard tray you're resting your hands on, the light you're reading by -- all can be more beautiful, more functional, and more sustainable.
So, we don't think you should go out and buy everything that you read about on this site, or at TreeHugger. But you should know that it exists, that sustainable, fantastically-designed, thoughtful versions of just about everything you consume on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis can be yours.
Examples? Check out Q Collection (and Q Collection Junior, Bambu, and ModGreenPod, just to name a few. Want to know where to get it? Check out TreeHugger's Green Buying Guides, and get on board with green design.