Sustainable Design Becoming Part of China's Future

1/6/2010 - Part of TCBN's Quality Series
Shanghai-based Cathy Huang, founder of China Bridge International, conducted research about the design industry in China. Sustainable design is getting attention all over the world, including in China. Shanghai especially is putting focus on the advancement and future of superior-quality design. Interview provided by Plastics News.

Video Transcription

What’s the status of sustainable design in China?

Recently we have done interesting research with Samsung Design Center China. It will become their very major initiative next year for in China because of the World Expo challenge and opportunities. We have been research about what the government initiative about, what the favorable policy about this green area, about green design or sustainable design, and we also look into the academic area, what they are doing now to advance the green concept. And then we look up the other companies - like what Sony, like what Daconi, like what the supplier and user companies - are doing in this area. Then we come up with strategic solutions for Samsung. How should they bring this to their design strategy for the global market? Especially for the Chinese market, how could they use this eco-design concept in design?

What steps in the Chinese government taking to encourage “greening” in the design process?

The government is starting to take initiative to encourage this area. For example, we are now working with the Shanghai government to build up a very large-scale material library in Shanghai. We probably will work with leading global resources for the library input. The government is going to invest a huge amount of money in this area for the green industry. A lot of information a lot of diversified of choice for material usage. The eco-design concept is the strong point in this area.

What are the career prospects in China for design school graduates?

Less than 20% of the design graduates are able to find a job in their certain area. So that’s a serious problem now. I think the government now is taking some actions to invest in the industry. For example, last year they created a master studio program. They invested money to the master studio so the best design studio is selected and the government give like half million to the companies for free to encourage them to grow more and hire more.



Interview conducted by Charter Member Bob Grace for Plastics News.  
Reproduced with permission.