One of the takeaway messages from this week’s E4S event on sustainable design is often one passionate advocate (not always the CEO) can lead to company change. Of course articulating the tangible financial return of being lean and green is important, but how do you do that? Argue for making better products? Sign up for lifecycle analysis like Cradle-to-Cradle certification? Here are a few suggestions:

• Become the Waste Eliminator!
• Be an advocate for making ‘better (translates to more sustainable) products’
• Mimic nature—plants and animals' design genius has been field tested over many centuries. For example, designer Franco Lodato reinvented the simple hammer by studying how woodpeckers do their thing (aka Biomimicry).

“We used to think smart design was optional,” said Catherine Bragdon, a design consultant for Herman Miller. “It’s becoming expected not just in the object, but a business model that brings ‘waste’—yours or another company’s— back in as a feedstock.”

How?

Demand more lifecycle standards from your supply chain. Or, design a whole revenue stream that’s built around bringing materials back in.

One company discovered by eliminating Styrofoam packing for paper- or pulp board they reduced their need for warehouse space by thousands of feet and saved money, says CIA professor Doug Paige.

Paige teaches his industrial design students to think twice about adding unnecessary flourishes and do-dads to products because each one uses more materials and requires more tools and processing.