The limits of current evaluation methods in a context of sustainable design: prudence as a new framework

TLDR: In this article, the authors suggest that sustainable design within a perspective of precaution can complement dominant preventive methods of decision-making used for ecodesign, and show how a precautionary approach can be used with the logic of sufficiency to complement the traditional preventive approaches based on efficiency for establishing/assessing sustainable solutions.

Abstract: This paper suggests that sustainable design within a perspective of precaution can complement dominant preventive methods of decision-making used for ecodesign. More specifically, it will show how a precautionary approach can be used with the logic of sufficiency to complement the traditional preventive approaches based on the logic of efficiency for establishing/assessing sustainable solutions. As a consequence precaution may allow designers to develop new areas of insight. Evidence suggests that environmental gains from technical improvements in product efficiency have historically been outweighed by an overall increase in consumption - rebound effects, where efficiency largely depends on technical innovations. Sufficiency relies on individual behavioural changes as well as on social innovation, improved well-being out of fewer goods and services. So a sustainable future can be founded on both efficiency (based on a preventive approach) and sufficiency (based on a precautionary approach).