Green Design Tools: Building Values and Politics into Material Choices

Green design tools are emerging as a new response to the dilemmas that architects and designers face in preventing the toxic impacts of building construction. Environmental health advocates, scientists, and consulting firms are stepping in to provide designers with new tools—including science-based...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science, technology, & human values technology, & human values, 2021-11, Vol.46 (6), p.1139-1171
Main Authors: Kokai, Akos, Iles, Alastair, Rosen, Christine Meisner
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case studies
Construction
Credibility
Decision making
Design
Designers
Environmental health
Green buildings
Green development
Legitimacy
Materials selection
Politics
Scientific validity
Sustainability
Sustainable design
Values
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Summary:Green design tools are emerging as a new response to the dilemmas that architects and designers face in preventing the toxic impacts of building construction. Environmental health advocates, scientists, and consulting firms are stepping in to provide designers with new tools—including science-based assessment methods, standards, databases, and software—intended to help structure and inform decision-making in sustainable design. We argue that green design tools play an important but largely uninvestigated role in giving designers new forms of influence while mediating how designers’ values are translated into actual design choices. Tool makers embed their own values and politics into the construction of the tools, which function as “black boxes”—their internal operations are understood as less important than their outputs for informing sustainable design. Using the green building movement as a case study, we consider three tools for selecting environmentally benign materials: the GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals, Pharos, and the Health Product Declaration. Examining controversies about the scientific validity of green design tools, we suggest that they are rooted in value conflicts and tensions in the politics of chemical knowledge. Transparent engagement with values and politics among tool developers and users could strengthen the legitimacy and credibility of green design tools.
ISSN:0162-2439
1552-8251
DOI:10.1177/0162243920976840