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Madrid Designers' Association establishes European Environmental Design Award

28.02.2010 News

Madrid (Spain) - The , with support from significant personalities in the world of design, architecture and education and training, has proposed the establishment of a European Environmental Design Award. This would provide a platform from which to encourage and spread good practice whereby design introduces into the production processes and the products themselves environmental values and sustainable model patterns that contribute to improving social and consumer practices and current production processes.

Alongside DIMAD in the establishment of this award is the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) of the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade, the Association Sustainability and Architecture (ASA), the Foundation Arte y Derecho (Art and Law) and European Social Fund / EOI Escuela de Negocios (Business School).

About the award

Design, understood as project discipline in the field of graphics, industry, space or architecture, is increasingly seen as a cultural value with special repercussions on the economy. The "creative factor" is already a quantifying parameter: In a recent study, the Premsela Foundation set at 1% the contribution made by Dutch design to the whole Dutch economy. Similar figures are mentioned in other countries which, like the UK, are able to quantify the figure.

In times of off-shoring and crisis of industrial models, the creative elements applied to production seem to be one of the most efficient ways to give economic life momentum and increase productivity.

Design and sustainability

Addressing the serious environmental challenges of today without hindering the living standarads we have been enjoying is a prime challenge that all our capacities for innovation and research must focus on. Using all our capacity to make industrial processes sustainable and the products we use and consume greener is nowadays a main social and economic priority. Finding practical solutions that mould new technological patterns to contribute to changes in our habits and production methods is today a priority.

Design, in its areas of industrial and product design, graphic design and communication, or architectural and space design, may and must play an active role in the process of searching for new solutions.

The award's goals

The European Environmental Design Award aims to:

Value and foster actions carried out in Europe by companies, institutions or designers which are particularly outstanding examples of good design from an environmental viewpoint.
Raise awareness among companies, public institutions, designers and society of the importance of allocating sustainability values to their designs and products.
Make society at large and productive sectors in particular aware of the importance of conceiving design as a welfare and wealth trigger and as carrier of cultural values and a utility.
Turn Madrid into a benchmark for sustainable design. Place the Central de Dise?o and Matadero Madrid at the centre of the design values included in the three previous goals.

To find out more, visit: http://best-ed.org/

For more information, please contact:

Madrid Designers' Association DIMAD
P? de la Chopera, 14
28045 Madrid
Spain
T: +34 914 746 787 / +34 914 746 780
F: +34 91 474 63 68
E: info@dimad.org