This post by guest contributor Gerard Furbershaw, designer, speaker, co-founder and COO of LUNAR, first appeared on LUNAR’s blog. He has served as President and Chairman of the Board of the Association of Professional Design Firms, Chairman of the San Francisco chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America, and is a Trustee of the Design Foundation.

Manufacturing companies interested in transitioning to sustainable business models would benefit from considering what Patagonia has done. Through a combination of their values, mission, life cycle assessments, and actions, they have become pioneers on the path towards sustainability.

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.

Today we are excited to announce a new partnership with Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), the world’s oldest and largest association for product designers. IDSA and Sustainable Minds have made a commitment to work together to advance the adoption and integration of ecodesign and sustainability practices in product design.

Greener product design means designing the whole product system from a life cycle perspective. Understanding what this means and how to design this way is the first step.

We are bringing together important tools and education for members, including offering Sustainable Minds LCA software at a discount. The software enables rapid iteration and comparison of new product concepts, and provides quantified environmental performance information during the design process to help make design and manufacturing trade-off decisions.

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.