Are North Americans just a bit too comfortable to design products for the next century? Sure, we can readily see the need for a latte maker that gets firmer foam from organic soy milk, or a computer mouse that lets us spend 4 more hours a day at our Dickensian digital drudge-stations. But is this what the world really needs right now, when a billion people are living on less than $2 a day?

These are the questions that go through my mind as I read the AfriGadget Blog, a showcase of bootstrap product design (sometimes using pieces from actual boots) as practiced by innovators all across the African continent. A team of blog contributors and readers contribute pictures, videos and stories to this fascinating blog that are “a testament to Africans bending the little they have to their will, using creativity to overcome life’s challenges,” according to the editors.

This is the first of a three-part posting on the concept of intrinsic sustainability. In this post, Ken Hall describes the essential qualities of a sustainable society. Subsequent posts deal with the challenges of sustainable design teams and the built environment.

Miriam-Webster defines intrinsic as belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing. The challenge we face today is that sustainability is not intrinsic to our current way of thinking, designing, building, conducting business, and relating to each other and the places where we live.

Achieving high-performance environments requires substantial changes from business-as-usual thinking – for designers, builders and occupants. This is especially true when attempting to achieve a net-zero or carbon neutral environmental design.

First and foremost, the entire human chain – design team, client, and eventual users of the facility – must all share the intention to achieve predefined performance mandates, even if that means living within limits and being more flexible about received notions of comfort.

Secondly, we must relearn the principles of passive design and integrate them with clean technologies to deliver appropriate renewable energy for the needs of a sustainable society.

During these short days at the end of the year when you find yourself wondering what to do next (with or without all that company in your house), try this Green Trivia Quiz. It’s taken from our perusals of some of the quirkier green stories we’ve seen this year.

Following on the heels of Release 1.0, we've made it easier for more people to find out, learn about and subscribe to Sustainable Minds. In this release:

• Educator and student subscriptions
• Affiliate referral program
• Software enhancements

Educator and student subscriptions
As part of the Designers Accord community, and as 'Summit Sponsor' of the Global Summit on Design Education & Sustainability, we are committed to helping educators create undergraduate, graduate and professional development curriculum to integrate environmental sustainability into design, engineering and business programs.