Sustainable Minds Workshop, July 10, 2009
If you and your company are committed to creating more environmentally sustainable products, this workshop will equip you to move forward with greater knowledge and credibility. Join Philip White, lead author of Okala^TM, Terry Swack and the Sustainable Minds team in this groundbreaking workshop.

"I just wanted to say thank you for creating this software. Earlier this year when we were looking at the Okala guide and Okala millipoints, one of our engineers built an Excel workbook to get people to do Okala assessments. Trying to do them even in a simplified way was very cumbersome. We are happy to have this software. It will enable us to integrate this information easily into our process. Thank you."

What you'll learn

1. Ecodesign principles and product innovation through ecodesign strategies
2. Life cycle thinking and a whole product systems approach to product design
3. To have a deeper and practical understanding of what life cycle assessment (LCA) is
4. How to conduct a Sustainable Minds, Okala-based LCA to produce quantifiable environmental impact results to support design decisions
5. How to consider integrating SM LCA in your design process and service offerings

This workshop has been designed to enable you to use Sustainable Minds to deliver valuable ecodesign skills and knowledge to your organization now. The agenda includes a combination of lecture and hands-on group work. Read about our first workshop!

Attendees

Everyone needs to use life cycle thinking and a whole product systems approach: designers, design engineers, product managers, product development directors, sustainability managers, marketers and executives in charge of sustainable development. Because of this, we recommend sending 1+ people from your organization!  We also welcome LCA practitioners and sustainability consultants who wish to expand their service offerings.

Previous workshop participants were from forward thinking and acting organizations such as Whirlpool, Motorola, Farm, Magnet, Celestica, RISD and others.

Tuition

$295 for workshop only
$995 for workshop and software

When registering for the Workshop, you have two options: one to register just for the workshop itself and the other option is to register for the workshop and receive a 15 month, single user subscription. This is an additional three months on top of our standard annual subscription.

Note: Sustainable Minds is now in beta but not yet publicly available.

Faculty

Philip White, IDSA, Sustainable Minds’ VP of Sustainable Product Design, is an ecological design strategist who develops ecologically intelligent products and systems. He specializes in helping students and practitioners apply ecodesign strategies and advanced environmental impact assessment methods. Philip organized the development and is the lead author of the Okala Ecological Design Curriculum that is used by more than 40 schools of product design in North America. He writes extensively about design and ecology and has been published in ID Magazine (New York), Items (The Netherlands), Curve (Australia), and Innovation (US). More >

Terry Swack, Co-founder & CEO Sustainable Minds, is an Internet and environmental entrepreneur and a pioneer in customer experience strategy and design. In 2005, she founded and served as CEO of The Beam and GreenBuildingBlocks.com, a Web 2.0 marketplace for consumers, manufacturers, and green building professionals to power the demand for clean and green products and services. In 2002, Terry served as a founding management team member of network security software company StillSecure. Co-leading the product teams, they brought three best-of-breed products to market in 18 months. Her first company TSDesign, an Internet strategy and product design firm, was acquired in 1999 by Razorfish, a global digital services provider.

About Sustainable Minds

SustainableMinds.com is an on-demand, Web-based software and information service. At the core is design decision support software that enables environmental life cycle assessment and rapid iteration of product concepts in the earliest stages of design. OkalaTM is the science behind SustainableMinds.com. It is the first life cycle assessment methodology for evaluating potential ecological and human health impacts from products used in North America.

Premier strategic relationship



Autodesk has joined with SM to drive awareness and adoption of sustainable design, and to grow the sustainable product design marketplace.