The Role of The Environmental Awareness Into Eco-Design

The Role of The Environmental Awareness Into Eco-Design

SILVA, Cristiano Alves;

PhD Student Technical Superior Institute, Technical University of Lisbon, PT
ALVES, Daniela Estaregue;
Msc Student IADE-Visual Arts, Design and Marketing Institute, Lisbon, PT
PAULA, Ronise de
Msc Student da Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes e Comunicação, UNESP, Bauru/SP
FERRÃO, Paulo M. Cadete
PhD Professor Technical Superior Institute, Technical University of Lisbon, PT

Palavras-chave: educação, desenvolvimento sustentável, design, inovação.

Resumo:
Os problemas relacionados à degradação meio ambiente cresceram exponencialmente desde a Revolução Industrial.
Assim, nota-se a urgência em promover transformações dos comportamentos sociais através da aprendizagem e
adaptação sustentável. Neste contexto, esta pesquisa, por meio de questionário direto, objetiva entender a percepção do
meio ambiente por parte de estudantes de diferentes áreas projetuais, verificando assim a tendência do conceito de
Ecodesign.

Keywords: education, sustainable development, design, innovation.

Abstract:
Since the Industrial Revolution the problems related to the environment has been growing exponentially. Thus, there is
the necessity to promote changes on social behaviors through learning and sustainable adaptation. In this context, this
research aims to understand by questionnaire, the environmental perception by students from different projectual
areas, checking the trends of the Ecodesign concepts.

Sustainable Development
The environmental issue has been one of the central themes in international policy debates. Among them, the
position of the Rome Club, expressed in the Meadows Report (1972), points to the limits of economic
growth, the finitude of natural resources and raises the idea of zero growth. Then, sustainability becomes a
central point among policy makers, managers, environmental movements and scientific debates. In 90´s,
during the Rio 92 conference, sustainable development is defined as "the model of development which aims
the environmental sustainability through the rational use of natural resources in order to meet the current
generations needs without compromising the future generations needs. “(UN, 1991).

The current development model, in which economic activities are encouraged to depletion of the
environment, it leads to the depletion of natural resources that societies needs even to maintenance the
current economic system. After Rio 92, the society note that the deterioration of the environment rises direct
impacts on global economic development, as demonstrated by the results of recent decades (Brown, 2000).
Therefore, sustainable development suggests quality instead of quantity, reducing the use of raw materials
and products and increasing reuse and recycling (WWF, 2008).

A new approach to relationships is necessary, in which the capacity of the natural ecosystems to support
human activities is taking into account. The changes from this new approach need to be deep, since the
sustainability is a new paradigm and, in this sense environmental education contributes to promote
environmental ethics and moral. The transmission of the concepts that permeate the environmental education
exempt of the imposition of both the capitalist values and the distortion of information can change the
current relationships between societies and the environment around them, and then, collaborate to the
sustainable development.
- Environmental Education
The limit imposed by the environment raised the global capitalism utopia and point out the real goal of the
global society: sell goods to the greatest number of people, no matter the generated damage. According to
Leff (2001), the perception of an environmental limit is the beginning of the change from economic
globalization to green globalization. "This implies the establishment of new social relationships of
production and new civilization feelings, in which emerges a power made up a new subject under new
rules." There is no chance to encourage significant changes without take up powerful ways of dissemination
of information and culture such as the new technologies, as well as projectual professionals as trainers of
consumption behaviors. Then, the personal involvement and the encouragement of the reflection and debate
are necessary drivers to efficient environmental education toward a future which will be living and thinking
under development and progress logic.

When the environmental education is proposed to reach the goal of sustainable societies, is also required
training for new trainers to create an environmental citizenship (UNESCO-UNEP, 1998; Tilbury, 1992; Fien
& Rawling, 1996). Reaching this goal implies to meet professionals from different knowledge expertise to
motivate the construction of the network able to articulate information managed to understand widely the
nature of environmental education (Reigota, 1999).

Since designers and projetual professionals assume of the technology as well as media to promote social
behaviors, so they can motivate a new and entire relationship between individuals and their environment.
Nowadays, this entire relationship is not understood by most of the population, mainly urban population,
because they only see the environmental issues with regard to the preservation of nature (waste, natural
landscapes, animals etc).

In this context, the environmental education becomes a great education tool for sustainable development,
where the environment is perceived as all spaces in which anyone is placed e.g. urban, rural, natural,
wherever, any environment in which there are interaction (Leite, 2003). Thus, we will be able to reinvent the
social, economical and environmental world or, according to Bill McDonough: "We have to get off the filters
of the chimney and place them in our minds."

- Design for Sustainability

The current model of the built environment and the rapid development of the goods that promote the
reasoning of the "disposable", are the main factors of depletion the natural environment. In the 70's the
contribution of both the design and communication professionals for environmental destruction was raised
by Victor Papanek (1977), when he says: "when creating new species of indestructible garbage, when
selecting materials and manufacturing procedures which pollute the air we breathe, the designers are
becoming a dangerous species.” On the other hand, those professionals may also be the solution of
environmental issues, since their work is related to creative innovation processes (Yang and Giard, 2001).
Thus, the education of those professionals must be connected to the development of an ethics that provides
the reflection about “the design besides the design” (Fry, 1993), because can not exist the responsible design
without the responsible designer (Findel, 2001).

According to environmental educator David Orr (1992, 1994), the environmental crisis is caused by people
with college degrees and educated to believe that the depletion of the nature is our legitimate right, still we
are even educating young people if there were no planetary urgency. In this context, the following questions
aroused: The college education has answered the challenge to create sustainable professionals? Is the
sustainability integrated into academic programs? Can students complete their training capable to promote
sustainable ethics and products?

- Experimental Survey
To answer those questions a survey that contains 7 questions was realized with students from different
projectual areas to understand their degree of environmental awareness and whether they perceive
themselves as members of the natural environment, indicating a trend of the Ecodesign. In the survey were
participate 130 students who answered the questions in classrooms of their respective colleges in Portugal.

2
- Results
Question 1 (Figure 1) aims to understand the perception of students related to the suggested elements as well
as the perception of themselves as part of the environment. The results show that about 86% of students
recognize the elements related to the nature and ecology, as part of the environment. On the other hand, the
urban elements constructed by man, are recognized by only 44% of the students. The result can be directly
motivated by the wide advertisements regarding to environmental problems. It also indicates a perception of
the urban environment as something external and unlinked of the environment that does not depend of the
nature to exist.
ENVIRONMENTAL ELEMENTS PERCEPTION

100
90
80
70
60
50
(%)

40
30
20
10
0

ELEMENTS

Figure 1 – Perception of the environmental elements

Figure 2 shows separately the results for humans and the urban environment from figure 1. It aims to
emphasize that despite their importance the recognition of these elements as part of the environment is
significantly low, taking into account the education level of respondents. The results indicate that less than
half of respondents (44%) recognize the built environment as element of the environment. Still, about half of
respondents (48%) did not even recognize themselves as part of nature, they perceive themselves as external
and independent agents, destined to obtain natural resources without being affected directly. The low results
point to the need of environmental reeducation of the projectual professionals to achieve in long term
products and behaviors that really contribute with sustainable development. That reeducation can make the
environmental awareness an acquired habit, unlike of the taxes and government regulations.
HUMAN ELEMENTS PERCEPTION

100
90
80
70
60
50
(%)

40
30
20
10
0
Men/Women Aborigene Cities Slums
ELEMENTS

Figure 2 – Perception of the human elements.

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Figure 3 is regarding to the questions 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, this group of questions aims to understand the
student’s priorities between the environment and human activities (eg economic growth). The results were
assigned as "good", "bad" or "regular" for answers which respectively " priority of the environment," "
priority of the human activities" and "no priority". The figure 3 shows that almost half of students (48%)
consider the environment more important than human activities and it can not be degraded based on the
unlimited growth of the societies, hence increasing the need for natural resources. However, the number of
undecided students (no answer/null + regular) and students who consider human activities more important
than environment is high 60% and 23% respectively. This result is too bad, since those students will be the
future designers and will influence the social behaviors and consumption, it also point out to the continuity
of the current economic rationality.

ENVIRONMENTAL PRIORITY

100

80

60
(%)

40

20

0
Bad Regular PRIORITIESGood No answer/Null

Figure 3 – Priority between environment and human activities

Question 7 (Figure 4) allows checking the scope of the student’s knowledge about the environmental
subjects in different levels: local, national and worldwide. First of all, the results clearly show that only 2.3%
of students mentioned environmental subjects besides those suggested in the survey. It can indicate that the
majority of the students (97.7%) has superficial knowledge about environmental problems and maybe get
information from mass media. In general, the knowledge is global for all subjects, alternating between
"national" (average 56.7%) and "worldwide” (average 60.8%). It may have been motivated by media
highlights about suggested subjects. The average local perception of the environmental problems (city,
district, neighborhood etc.) is very small about 28%. For instance, the climate change subject only 24% of
respondents assigned it to local behavior, indicating how distant is the environmental issue from cities and of
individual behaviors, it corroborates Figure 3. Only the subject "land speculation" does not present
significant difference among local (32%), national (28%) and worldwide (40%) perception, in other words,
this subject is recognized as local and global problem. Then, the environmental responsibility is perceived as
something distant. However, the shift toward sustainability begins on individual acts and behaviors.

4
 SCOPE
100

80

60
(%)

40

20

0
Environmental Sanitation

rives/lakes/beachs

Climate Change

Others
Deforest

Land Speculation
Air Pollution

Pollution of the

ENVIRONMENTAL SUBJECTS

Local National Worldwide

Gráfico 4 - Scope of the student’s knowledge

Conclusions
The University as a microcosm of the community has to practice its teachings to improve and/or change the
values and behaviors in the society. Since, they are based on consumption and possession and have caused
the current unsustainability relationship between human activities systems and natural systems. Thus, the
University can and must improve this relationship preparing new generations and behaviors according to the
sustainable development concepts.

However, this short survey illustrates the fragility of the education system to prepare "eco-professionals"
from projectual areas, because it points out no environmental knowledge by interviewees. Still, it points to
the preference of the current economic rationality rather than environmental rationality, in which the
unlimited economic growth is perceived of greater importance by comparing to the environment.

Certainly the conservation ethics requires of each one environmental acts and behaviors, which means that
everyone have to perceived themselves as part of the nature. This environmental perception was not find on
results. It shows that the environmental preservation will be hard to achieve while people do not recognize
that human existence depends on how we assess and minimize our brands on nature. In this context, the
educational process is too important and should encourage acts and experimentation to solve real society
problems, as well as groups where students can be able to minimize environmental problems in their local
communities and use those experiences to the market.

The University while promoting its teachings also works for itself, forming partnerships with local and
regional authorities to develop projects. It involves students in sustainable activities motivating collaborative
and critical thinking from each personal skill, which are necessaries for implementation and success of the
ideal sustainable development, and then, minimizing human marks on the environment.

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Contact
SILVA, Cristiano Alves - e-mail: cralves@dem.ist.utl.pt

Acknowledgment
To CAPES, that provides a doctoral scholarship for the first author for his studies at Technical Superior
Institute in Lisbon.