Green Design Tools
Building Values and Politics into Material Choices
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5337146 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Akos Kokai (0000-0002-0335-7780, University of California System, corresponding author), Alastair Iles (0000-0001-8719-5557, University of California System), Christine Meisner Rosen (University of California System) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1139-1171 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0162243920976840 |
| OpenAlex | W3107663227 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 53 |
Green design tools are emerging as a new response to the dilemmas that architects and designers face in preventing the toxic impacts of building construction. Environmental health advocates, scientists, and consulting firms are stepping in to provide designers with new tools-including science-based assessment methods, standards, databases, and software-intended to help structure and inform decision-making in sustainable design. We argue that green design tools play an important but largely uninvestigated role in giving designers new forms of influence while mediating how designers' values are translated into actual design choices. Tool makers embed their own values and politics into the construction of the tools, which function as "black boxes"-their internal operations are understood as less important than their outputs for informing sustainable design. Using the green building movement as a case study, we consider three tools for selecting environmentally benign materials: the GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals, Pharos, and the Health Product Declaration. Examining controversies about the scientific validity of green design tools, we suggest that they are rooted in value conflicts and tensions in the politics of chemical knowledge. Transparent engagement with values and politics among tool developers and users could strengthen the legitimacy and credibility of green design tools
Credibility · Engineering ethics · Knowledge management · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · SAFER · Sustainability · Sustainable Design · Computer Science · Engineering · Environmental Sustainability in Business · Law · Sustainable Building Design and Assessment · Sustainable Supply Chain Management
Science in action
The Right Tools for the Job
Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty
Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal
Algorithms of Oppression
Assessing risk, automating racism
Sorting Things Out
Expert and Public Perception of Risk from Biotechnology
A Wary Alliance
Compromised Agency
Materials sovereignty
Building shared information infrastructure for chemical alternatives assessment
What about the Circularity of Hazardous Materials
Residues
A critical review of building environmental assessment tools
The role of chemical policy in improving supply chain knowledge and product safety
Creating safer consumer products
Molecular Bureaucracy
The private governance of food
Contested Boundaries in Policy-Relevant Science
Biodiversity Datadiversity
Inductive Risk and Values in Science
Toxic politics
Green Chemistry as Social Movement
Alternative Pathways in Science and Industry
Alterlife and Decolonial Chemical Relations
Redefining pollution and action
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2024 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |