My contribution to an improved environment

3 short questions to top designer Joachim Nordwall who gives his opinion on how good design can help to promote environmentally friendly consumption and behavior.

How important is design in terms of clean-tech products?

-  New technologies are very important but often invisible to the user. If one can not actually see the smart technology, you can at least try to communicate it’s advantages or it’s uniqueness in the design.You can for example choose to highlight anECO friendly feature on a washing machine. Such as a large ECO button, in order to invite the user to select that button instead of the other more energy consuming programs

How can smart design and technology make us change our habits?

-The challenge that we face after having polluted the earth requires that we change our old habits and invent new technologies. It can be simple things like the primary focus on designing the stairs instead of the elevators in a new building. To overcome the dilemma of people choosing the old dirty product over an ECO product, so it is often due to lack of function or design of the ECO product. Many prefer the old classic light bulb because of the light instead of an LED lamp, as well as gasoline or diesel engines to avoid range anxiety, etc. Tesla (and even to some extent BMW) tries to tackle the problem by making great cars that have almost the same range gasolinel and diesel cars achieve and the cars are convenient to recharge.

You have designed the charging cable RAY. Tell us about the work.

- With the new cable RAY Charge Amps makes it even easier to recharge an electric car. Ray, which has a brand new expression in both design and function, is provided with a so-called pebble grip.The handle is more reminiscent of a plug than gasoline handle, and is easier to manipulate which makes it more user-friendly. Furthermore, RAY comes in different colours so you can either select a matching color to the car or your favourite color.

At last; What consumer product is because of its clever design is your personal favorite?

- I think SPORK for Light My Fire is best just because it is democratic, everyone understands how it works. SPORK is a combined fork, knife and spoon that has sold over 30 million copies