Carbon footprinting for design education

The use of Carbon Footprinting as a metric for gauging the sustainability of products has gained momentum in the past five to ten years. As such it needs to be introduced to design students studying sustainable design modules, despite the recognised limitations of the approach. Following the completion of the literature review, a teaching package comprising an introductory lecture, the new carbon footprinting tool – ‘Dirty Carbon’ and a practical workshop were developed. The new tool was assessed with design students against an industry leader called ‘Sustainable Minds’. Students (n=42) were provided with contextual information on what a carbon footprinting is by attending the lecture, then taught how to use the two tools and asked to perform a full carbon footprint analysis of a product using both tools within a workshop setting. The outputs from the project showed that Dirty Carbon outperformed the market leader in a teaching context. Further testing through end of semester exams demonstrated that the new teaching package had contributed to a high level of knowledge attainment regarding carbon footprinting.