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Brand identity
The set of visual and verbal signals a company uses so people recognise it and know what to expect: name, logo, colours, typeface, tone of voice and product styling.
Circular economy
An economy designed so materials keep going round in loops of reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling instead of ending as waste after one use.
Design for disassembly
Designing a product so it can be taken apart into clean, separate materials with ordinary tools, usually by using screws and clips instead of glue and welds.
Embodied energy
The total energy used to make one kilogram of a material, counting mining or growing it, refining it and transporting it, before the product is even assembled.
Ethical sourcing
Choosing where materials and parts come from on the basis of how the people who produced them were treated and what the extraction did to their land, not only on price.
Life cycle analysis
A study that adds up the energy used, materials taken and pollution released by a product across its whole life, from getting the raw material out of the ground to throwing the product away.
Planned obsolescence
Designing a product so it stops being useful or desirable after a set time, so the owner buys a replacement sooner than they otherwise would.
The six Rs
A checklist of six questions designers ask to cut the environmental cost of a product: rethink, refuse, reduce, reuse, repair and recycle.