Marketing companies are scampering through the land of sustainability searching for the golden ticket to provide that magical message for the marketing blurbs placed their green designed products. The difficulty, according to Sustainable Minds, mainly falls within impossibility to define “green” and to quantify and measure sustainability. Therein lies the challenge of bringing viable solutions to probable problems.
As designers, marketers and other thinkers bump their heads against the wall hoping the answer will come magically, Okala decided to take the problem by the horns. Eureka! They created a lifecycle assessment methodology and teaching tools to be embraced by our marketing brothers destine to become a part of mainstream of thinking. The future for potential products to be labeled “green” now has a checks and balances tool to take into consideration!
Okala’s approach provides the expertise that brings the appropriate data and statistics necessary in order to understand the concept of sustainability. In this day an age it’s wonderful there’s such a resource, but have we forgotten to learn from our ancestors’ lifestyles? What about relating to ancient knowledge, ancient cultures and experiences? What about being the closest possible to Nature? What about understanding Nature?
When native American Indians, Moguls, Inuits built conical habitations was it coincidental or does it respond to the necessity of conserving energy? Strangely the tipi, the igloo, the yurt have in common their circularity, their nomadic function, their insulated walls (snow, canvas skin, felt), their natural system of ventilation (holes), their resistance to extreme weather conditions… Their motto, take the strict necessary from Nature! What is ours?
3000 years ago, Egyptians knew how to treat open wounds, burns with honey! Raw honey was their antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory in their medical science. Our medicine still claims and declines devastating “side-effects” to corroborate its efficiency! Nowadays more and more doctors fly to the Amazon to discover, collect knowledge on unknown plants’ properties. Is it a sign of a time? Are we going back to the source?
Scientifically, humanly, ecologically couldn’t they inspire our high-tech generation? Can we learn from our past? If they lived symbiotically with Nature without our excess of knowledge, why couldn’t we? To better understand humanity’s history is to better understand our future. To understand our past it’s to ease filling the gap of generations, cultures and the concept of sustainability. But for this bold step it requires wisdom and humility, is our civilization ready?
We hope so.