iF Trend Report 2023: The three layers of neo-ecology
At the moment, hardly any other megatrend appears to have such a major influence on the economy, politics and society as neo-ecology. Read in this exclusive excerpt of our iF Design Trend Report 2023 what all this means for designers!
The following is the second of a series of exclusive brief excerpts from our brandnew iF Design Trend Report 2023. Read everything you need to know about the project in collabaration with the Zukunftsinstitut in Frankfurt here!
NOTE: Until 20 July the download is free of charge!
In some places, the quality of life is declining considerably as a result of changed climate conditions; other places are becoming uninhabitable and people are already dying as a result. The world community is confronted with a continuously growing mountain of challenges: on the one hand, it’s crucial to find a sustainable way to do businessand produce without any sacrifices to the standard of living already achieved.
On the other hand, changes that are already occurring in the climate and ecology are forcing us to adapt to new living conditions. The more tangible the undesired consequences of our current ways of consuming and doing business become, the more a new way of seeing the world asserts itself. We are learning that our actions are enmeshed in multi-causal interdependencies and that events often take a non-linear course.
Best Practice 1: Use of Material
F SolidPod is a functional applicator designed for a line of gel and shampoo bars, offering an ecofriendly solution to the excessive use of single-use packaging in the cosmetics industry. The unique shape of the F SolidPod allows for maximum product utilization, effectively doubling the lifespan of the bars. Through a clever solution, the design recovers the traditional solid shampoo and gel bars.
Best Practice 2: Use of Sunlight
Where sunlight becomes art: The zero-energy media facade of the Novartis Pavillon combines organic photovoltaics and LEDs to create a communicative skin. It features a total of 10,000 solar modules with 30,000 embedded LEDs and consumes only as much power as it is capable of producing. This visually multi-layered membrane is used to screen the works of
three international artists, Daniel Canogar, Esther Hunziker and Semiconductor.
Knowing the tipping points
The more in-depth our understanding of the relationships within a system is, the better we can understand the interdependencies they contain and cope with these. The tipping points of systems play a special role in this regard. Tipping points are crucial turning points in complex systems that appear to be suddenly triggered by a small change and then, with extreme dynamics, lead to an irreversible shift.
In the discussion about the climate crisis, two different forms of tipping points are relevant: Changes in climate systems that have drastic and irreversible effects on ecosystems and the quality of life of entire regions are referred to as climatic tipping points. Climatic tipping points often have additional reaction loops and trigger further tipping points, lending an added impetus to global warming.
Some such climatic tipping points have already been reached or it is very likely that they can no longer be prevented. These include the demise of the coral reefs as a result of ocean acidification, the thawing of permafrost in Siberia and a consequent release of greenhouse gases that had been contained in the ice.
Want to know all the tipping points and see why it takes “three levels of innovation to be sustainable”?