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Are you aware of the environmental impacts of the stuff you buy? Is that chair you bought made from wood from a sustainable forest, or was it illegally logged ? Or perhaps your TV set's inner parts are too difficult to recycle or cause pollution when it’s dismantled at the end of its life. All this adds up to a huge amount of damage to the planet. This album looks at how designers must respond to the increasingly urgent need for sustainability in product design. Designers now need to come up with not only better, more efficient designs, but must also consider the impacts in all stages in the life cycle of a product to minimise negative social and environmental consequences. This album also reveals how new product ideas and inventions are tested before they’re turned into commercially viable products. You may also want to explore the albums "Energy and Sustainability" and "Sustainable Communities". This material is taken from The Open University Course T307 Innovation: designing for a sustainable future.