Defining Green Design: What Exactly Is Meant by Sustainable Design?
Green Design. Sustainable Design. They are more than related; in fact, they’re same thing. In defining the “term,” consider the two words — you have your definition. It is the design process with not only a physical foundation built towards sustainability, but a complete ideology towards sustainability.
In other words, Green Design can encompass the complete and total effort to imagine, design and construct entire communities and cities that are Eco-Friendly, socially and environmentally responsible. Pretty cool, huh?
What Green Design Entails
Many think of solar panels when they hear the term Green Design, but the concept stems far beyond what we can simply see or use to produce sustainable and/or renewable sources of power. That is, of course, part of the equation, but just a part.
E.F. Schumacher perhaps best suggested the movement in the 1973 collection of published essays, “Small Is Beautiful.” In his early writings, he called to light the fact that the United States economy was not sustainable — that so many things treated as expendable income, such as fossil fuels, should be treated as capital. Some 30 years later, people are finally beginning to take notice.
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