MADE at “Sustainable Innovation ‘09″
By Alex | December 23, 2009
The Sustainable Innovation Conference is an annual event organised by Martin Charter and Ros Carruthers of the University for the Creative Arts. This year it was held in a particularly beautiful and splendid venue namely Farnham Castle. The conference was a great success and well attended. It featured many expert speakers discussing various facets of sustainability and progress towards low carbon economies.
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Topics: BS 8887, Climate Change, Electronics | No Comments »
Research Ethics
By Alex | December 11, 2008
Topics: General | No Comments »
Environmentally Sensitive Design Research Structure Presentation
By Alex | December 2, 2008
Summary: BS8887 Manufacture Assembly Disassembly and End-of-Life Processing (MADE) was first published in 2006 with the purpose of reducing the damaging impacts of manufactured products through the inclusion of environmentally sensitive design principles during the early phase of new product development. Methods for evaluating the standard’s acceptance and implementation by organisations that have purchased it, as well as opportunities for further enhancement will be explored. The nature of the anticipated contribution to knowledge resulting from this research will also be discussed.
Research Structure Presentation 26 Nov 2008
Topics: BS 8887 | No Comments »
PhD Research Proposal
By Alex | September 1, 2008
Document first created: 27/8/08
Author: Alex Plant
Revision: 3
Title of research project
An evaluation of industry’s acceptance and implementation of BS8887 and its influence upon sustainable industrial design
Background
The mineral resources of our planet are continually extracted and used to manufacture goods and products that are sold through vast retail networks. At the end of their useful working lives, which are often short owing to perceived and built-in obsolescence, these products are discarded [Birkeland, 2002, p43]. The resulting waste is dumped in landfill sites, incinerated or increasingly recycled and remanufactured. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: BS 8887, Ph.D. | No Comments »
Notes on An Inconvenient Truth
By Alex | July 18, 2008
About the time I started working on my M.A., Al Gore released his excellent film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. As I was studying climate change, I wrote a set of extensive notes about the content of the movie. The notes are focused on the scientific and political material rather than his personal anecdotes. In fact, I was so inspired by his work that I made my own slide show called ‘Cause and Effect‘. You can view this on the Media page.
Chanel 4 produced a documentary called ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle‘ shortly after the release of Al Gore’s film. The principal argument was that more radiation is emitted when solar activity increases. This activity can be seen as solar flares and sun spots. It was suggested that variations in the sun’s energy output cause changes in the Earth’s temperature and that atmospheric CO2 concentration follows these changes rather than leading as the greenhouse effect theory suggests.
Personally, I am inclined to side with the vastly greater weight of scientific opinion supporting the theory that the climate change we are experiencing is a direct result of man’s activities, and the enormous volumes of ‘greenhouse gases’ that we release every day. However it does sound like a reasonable suggestion that variations in solar activity might also play a significant role.
If your school or college has set you the task of writing about ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, please feel free to read my notes. But no cheating or copying! 
Notes on an Inconvenient Truth
Topics: Climate Change | No Comments »
Commercial and Social Factors
By Alex | July 17, 2008
I wrote the text contained within this entry 10 years ago for a 2nd year bachelors level project. I’ve decided to include it here because the approach of visiting industrial companies and interviewing key members of staff is similar to that which I am proposing for my PhD. There’s even a chance that I might be able to refer back to some of the findings within this work and show how attitudes towards design for sustainability have changed in the intervening period. Ford was seen to be proactively developing cleaner technologies, whereas Aston Martin and Morgan were merely reacting to the requirements of legislation.
I hope you enjoy reading my essay and notes and would be pleased if you left a comment.
Commercial and Social Factors Essay
Topics: Automotive | No Comments »
Meeting with Dr Brian Griffiths
By Alex | July 14, 2008
7 July 2008
Brian Griffiths came to Brunel University in his mid to late 20s to study for a M.Sc. having worked in the manufacturing and engineering industry. He resisted the opportunity to work in the United States instead choosing to remain at the University. Having now reached retirement age, he lectures part time at Brunel and another institution in Wolverhampton as well as planning courses in design for manufacture (DFM). He is also an ordained priest in the Church of England.
Topics: Design for disassembly, General | 1 Comment »
Movies!
By Alex | July 2, 2008
Take a look at the Media page to see some videos from my M.A.!
Topics: General | No Comments »
Welcome to my weblog!
By Alex | June 27, 2008
Hello and thank you for visiting my brand new weblog! For my Ph.D. research, I intend to establish the state of the art within sustainable product design, and to determine exactly what it is that constitutes ‘best practice’ within the industry. This work will hopefully be suitable for incorporation within a new British Standard. I am planning to do this with a combination of a conventional literature review, followed by an extensive investigation into commercial practices through visiting manufacturers and recyclers. As part of my work, I will be interviewing key people, and examining the processes they use, with the intention of discovering the most useful and valuable concepts, methods, and design and management models appropriate for inclusion within the standard.
Topics: Design for disassembly, Ph.D. | 1 Comment »
