Recently I heard Behar make this comment in a video interview: “Can somebody design a better-looking hybrid car? Please. Cause I love the technology but I’m not gonna get into one yet.”

When superficiality trumps sustainability, something is wrong imo.

On the other hand, Behar’s leaf lamp is exactly the type of “green” product that does more harm than good by taking the spotlight away from real sustainable design solutions as the best references from the design community. What is the point of making a lamp that uses less energy and is highly recyclable if it cost $600 and no one can afford it? What kind of green impact is that? Who is ever going to recycle this lamp? Is this the best that the current industrial design poster-child and head of the most eco-oriented design school can do?

Along with the fame and money should come the “role model” responsibility to lead in not just ethical design practices which should be expected, but also in actual sustainable design practices which is a much more challenging task thus appropriate for a designers with Behar’s resources and influence.

…great article by Jeremy Faludi on WC http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//006455.html

If the design community is comfortable with the Leaf as one of our best examples of green design, then as a profession, we are not well positioned to lead as Sterling’s viridian design movement suggests.

The marketplace will push the manufactuers to do what is in accord with what is sustainable once people live in accord with the laws of nature more. Their own preferences will shape the market and eventually the world. This is a market place solution fueled by the rise in collective consciousness. It is raising the collective consciousness of society that will be the basis for the groundswell of demand.