Products that Last. Conny Bakker
energy consumption over time. Nothing more, much less.
The effort to develop new ways of doing business is part of a sizeable and varied attempt to turn our currently fragile life style into one of which we can be fairly certain that we can sustain it well into the remote future.
Products that Last proposes useful methods and strat-egies. There are no generic rules. Each case requires its own specific recipe. It offers a different perspective on commonly used notions in the sustainability discourse. ‘Life cycle’ is probably the most important concept in the book. There are various categories of life cycles. The kind aimed for in Life Cycle Assessment, for example, represents environmental impact. In the book product life cycle mainly concerns value changes. The emphasis is on maintaining value.
Energy consumption is only partly relevant to product lifespan extension. It is not a significant element when it concerns the design of a specific electric dishwasher, because value is the main issue. But it is certainly
meaningful when the evolution of dish washing enters the picture. As technology develops over time, energy consumption per product is likely to decrease. The opti-mal product lifespan then is defined by the point in time where the environmental impact that arises from using a product equals the embedded impact of a - more energy efficient - replacement product. So, in some cases, early replacement can be an eco-effective strategy.
A similar evolution occurs in devices that produce and store energy, such as windmills, solar panels and batteries. For those it is important to note that they have a lifecycle too, in the 25 years range. This implies that their value is subject to cultivation as well. Free energy is so attractive that this fact is sometimes overlooked.
Using minimal amounts of material through thinking in lightweight structures has an aim similar to product lifespan extension. The former implies a direct reduction, the latter a reduction through intensified use. Both are in line with the adage of visionary designer Richard Buckminster Fuller: ‘Do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing’. The many dome structures he designed are a close approximation. The future of technological development has a lot in store when we combine value cultivation with a diminished use of materials.
Perceived product value over time only partly depends on functional properties and the scenario of material interventions needed to keep the product going. Perceived meaning, the immaterial, storytelling element is equally important for maintaining its reputation. In practice this may concern branding, advertising and organising what could be called ‘image enhancing activities’. Up till now these efforts have been carried out exclusively within the linear model of design for sales, with the exception of the odd ‘lifelong guarantee’ advertisement. There are opportunities here that may affect the development of business models.
The last domain to be mentioned is history of design and commerce. Very little evidence is available regarding the relationship between assumptions about design and product longevity. The problem with the design of lasting products is that it must start out from speculation, and that it will by definition take a long time to be proven right. Historic longitudinal research could be of great value here. There is no future without learning from the past.
Some people own two functioning coffeemakers and a bunch of broken down ones stashed away somewhere. Sooner or later they will discard the wrecks, possibly when clearing up storage space. Or a functioning machine decides to start leaking and the owners decide to replace it with a brand-new and improved coffeemaker.
Long term framing
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Expiration dates The epitome of linear product development is of course planned obsolescence, which is the opposite of any attempt to make products last. The principle dates back to the early 1920s, when an annual change of model in the bicycle and car industries was proposed as a way to nudge customers to keep on buying the latest model. In 1932, Bernard London introduced the expression “planned obsolescence” - as a way to reanimate the economy in the US after The Great Depression. His particular interpretation might even have justified his proposals. Industrial designer Brooks Stevens, on the other hand, popularised the term “planned obsoles-cence” in the 1950s specifically as a means to make customers purchase the latest designs. Commercial critic Vance Packard distinguished between London’s emotional obsolescence and the rational functional kinds, where products either break down after a predefined period of time or become too costly to be used economically.
Mythology has long surrounded this issue, and this was commented on by Dutch writer Karel van het Reve, who worked as a newspaper correspondent in the Soviet Union in 1967 and 1968. He wondered why Western industry benefited from the limited lifespan of light bulbs, whereas the light bulb lifespan was much shorter in Russia, where those involved in production couldn’t care less about repeat sales. He also observed something very peculiar: people in the Soviet Union were prepared to pay for light bulbs that no longer worked. As it turned out, they collected them to swap them for working light bulbs at the office i.e. get a functioning light bulb when you need it, without having to wait for state bureaucracy.
The abandoned house of the Bulgarian
communist party.
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The world of values is overwhelming and chaotic. One way to provide an overview is to regard it as a festive mix of value systems and choose one as an example. We have picked the traditional electric coffeemaker, because it represents all the models and strategies described in Products that Last. Apart from being a popular functional object, it consumes energy and needs other products - coffee and filters or pads/cups - to do its job.
Let us start from the beginning: the design. The first element in creating value is non-material. A small group of people are paid to envision a new coffee-making device with its very own characteristics in order to distinguish it from its competitors. Since electric coffeemakers have reached their maximum functional potential, the added value is projected mainly through form, texture and colour. The new design addresses a certain lifestyle stereotype, and it is not exceptional that, from a functional quality point of view, it is
inferior to its predecessors. The prototype and the plan to produce and market the item represent the first layer of added value.
After the design and optimisation stage comes production, the most obvious process for achieving product quality. Apart from the material devices used and the factory lay-out as value adding services in their own right, this requires raw materials: metals, plastics and bonding agents in a preproduction form - granulates, sheets, tubes, fluids and so on. Producing these materials from ore, oil and vegetation, including the transportation effort required adds more value. However this, paradoxically, combines with a loss of value, because getting raw materials into shape requires energy. And there will inevitably be waste. You win some, you lose some.
This phenomenon also applies to the production and assembly of parts in order to manufacture this provider of steaming hot drinks. The amount of production waste can be considerable. It usually includes
To improve your own life by improving someone else’s is the standard individual engine of economic activity. Services are performed that range from producing and selling huge container vessels with enormous quantities of trade in their economic wake, to buying one packet of paper handkerchiefs a day and selling them one by one, thus making them affordable to the poor. You can also choose to attend to a sick person in an intensive care unit, teach children, lend money, sell reconditioned engines