The Green Product Design Network (GPDN) is a group of University leaders who are experts in green chemistry, product design, business and journalism with an interest in inventing sustainable products that can be readily adopted and marketed to society at large.
The GPDN is a new and evolving network at the University. Members of the leadership team of the GPDN are chemistry professor Julie Haack, chemistry professor Jim Hutchison, product design associate professor Kiersten Muenchinger, Lundquist College of Business Managing Director of Center for Sustainable Business Practices Tom Osdoba, and journalism professor Kim Sheehan.
The GPDN’s goal is to take ideas from inventions into the marketplace to create a long-term impact on society, according to the GPDN’s Web site.
“We want to try to make products that make society greener,” Hutchison said, who helped found the GPDN. He and a group of University supporters submitted a proposal in 2009, and in that same year, the University selected the GPDN as one of the key supported projects in accordance with its emerging academic plan.
Haack, networking coordinator of the GPDN, creates curriculum involving and incorporating green chemistry into design principles to minimize the impact on human health and the environment.
“The term ‘green’ is based on the definition from green chemistry. We want to design products that minimize the impact on human health and the environment,” Haack said.
Sheehan joined the group winter term 2010. Her role in the group is to match consumer understanding with what developers understand about products and the science behind them.
“It’s a terrific opportunity for me,” she said.
Sheehan co-created and is involved with the Web site EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index, where she learned about green labeling and marketing tactics for companies who sell “environmentally-friendly” products. Greenwashing is similar to whitewashing, “a coordinated attempt to hide unpleasant facts, especially in a political context.
‘Greenwashing’ is the same premise, but in an environmental context,” according to the Greenwashing Index Web site. The GPDN wants to create products that are truly green, not products that simply have the “green” label.
Osdoba’s role is to build a bridge between businesses and the University.
“This is a dynamic time. There’s an emergence of attention around green chemistry in production. There’s a window for opportunity for what could be a generational process of making products greener and addressing socioeconomic issues,” Osdoba said.
GPDN members agreed that inventing truly “green” products requires an interdisciplinary approach, which is easily accessible at the University.
Students interested in the GPDN can get involved in a number of ways, such as by viewing the Web site, or taking a class about green product design. The GPDN hopes to have internships and opportunities available for students in the next school year. There will be a class available in the summer that focuses on green product design. It’s the first product design course that brings chemistry and product design students together, Haack said.
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