My first paid “green” job was researching techniques for the eco-design of “large made to order products” such as oil platforms, ships and process plant – anything very large and one-off. One of my philosophical ideas was to extend the tradition cradle-grave life cycle for such products to include a post-decommissioning “legacy” phase. The purpose was to encourage the designers, owners and operators of such facilities to think beyond the act of dismantling and consider long term residual issues. I was very pleased with this idea, believing it would encapsulate the sustainability idea of intergenerational equity, but after getting it published in the Journal of Engineering Design and including it in my MPhil thesis, it singularly failed to set the eco-design world on fire. One of my colleagues at the time uncharitably said it reminded her of musty old ladies.
So it was with some interest then that I read about Shell having its arm bent by the UN to contribute to the clean up of Ogoniland in Nigeria despite having ceased operations there in 1993. This is exactly the kind of issue that I wanted to encapsulate in my legacy idea. Designers would be challenged to design out such legacy problems on the drawing board, treating them with the same priority as issues in the traditional life cycle. Maybe I should resurrect the idea…