Kingston embraces sustainability

Kingston University appears to have taken up the design sustainability baton, following the demise of the Design Museum’s flagship initiative, Design Sense (DW 17 January).

The university’s Designing for Sustainability Research Group has been awarded a £100 000 grant to set up a recycling scheme, which will begin on 26 February at the Design Council.

The grant will fund a one-year project, called Recycling by Design, which aims to assess the types of materials used by product and graphic designers and architects, in order to persuade them to adopt recycled material.

The initiative picks up threads of the former Design Sense scheme and is designed to promote successful sustainability case histories to businesses, says Design Council chief executive Andrew Summers.

The university is issuing a questionnaire to more than 10 000 designers and material specifiers, the results of which will be published on 26 February on a website, www.recylingbydesign.org, which was created by Verb Design.

Verb has also created a logo for the research group, which also launches on 26 February.

‘The logo will make the work we do more tangible, and should help us to get companies on board,’ says Designing for Sustainability Research Group co-ordinator Anne Chick.

Design Sense was killed off by the Design Museum and sponsor Corus as its work ‘can better be achieved through other programmes of events’, according to the museum.

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