ABSTRACT
Industrial design began in the early years of the 20th century to provide design services for manufacturing. 1 Since then, its role has developed with the industry and today it is often the key ingredient of a company's success. A broad range of expertise, knowledge and skills enables the industrial designer to make important contributions to our modern, globalized systems of product development, production and marketing. However, when we add sustainable development to the mix of issues to be considered by manufacturing industry, the industrial designer is generally ill equipped to offer advice. In addition, a primary concern of manufacturing has to be the economic factor. When sustainability issues are raised, as they have been on an increasing basis in recent years, it is perhaps understandable that many companies are reluctant to deal with them; the issues are complex, company knowledge is often lacking and, perhaps most critically, any action to address concerns about sustainability is usually perceived as being detrimental to the bottom line.
