105
want chocolate, cigarettes, and a trashy movie. In the future, we want to eat fruit, to quit
smoking, and to watch Bergman films. (Lambert 2006)
This decision-making dynamic holds in the considerations that dominate the commercial design world as well, where short-term risks of financial failure outweigh
long-term environmental or social concerns. Clients responsible for the financial
performance of individual projects and initiatives may make aspirational statements
that embrace a sustainable design ethos, but meaningful actions are not likely to
follow if they require any real change in business behavior or priorities.
Heuristics are used to substitute complex questions with simpler ones to break
the cycle of decision-making paralysis and arrive at an answer. Designers may
reframe an inherently complex problem using only a subset of criteria they feel
most comfortable with to define acceptable parameters. When faced with complexity, or a threat to the financial bottom line, it is common to retreat to the traditional
metrics of success.
Sustainable design and production is a multifaceted domain that ideally would
include triple-bottom-line accounting considerations (Elkington 1998). To remain
in business, however, mainstream design practices continue to hew closely to a client’s primary concerns which are often financial. A design firm that consistently and
completely ignores financial, single-bottom-line issues is not viable in the marketplace for long.
Even designers able to successfully expand a single-bottom-line focus to include
a project’s environmental impact often simplify the issues under consideration. To
avoid the complexity that a multivariable matrix of weighted and qualified environmental impact categories introduces, they may optimize a single performance criterion such as energy efficiency, carbon foot print, or waste reduction. Attempting to
treat all impact categories equally would require time and effort that are currently
too resource intensive to integrate into the design process. The next three chapters,
however, present workflow options to realistically consider a wider subset of material environmental impacts using purpose-built tools to do so.
6.1.2 Biases
Cognitive biases are constantly at work in the evaluation of relative threats or benefits. Availability biases work to convince that an event is less likely to occur if there
are no examples available in recent memory; tomorrow’s world will be a lot like
yesterday’s world based on easily retrieved memories (Schwartz et al. 1991).
Confirmation biases promote the searching and accepting of only that information
that supports personal view, beliefs, or values (Nickerson 1998). Hyperbolic discounting is at work in the earlier “fruit or chocolate” example when making more
virtuous or health choices later but take immediate payoffs now. People make
choices today that their future selves would prefer not to have made, despite using
the same reasoning (Laibson 1997). Normalcy biases lead people to minimize or
6.1 Fast and Slow Decisions
want chocolate, cigarettes, and a trashy movie. In the future, we want to eat fruit, to quit
smoking, and to watch Bergman films. (Lambert 2006)
This decision-making dynamic holds in the considerations that dominate the commercial design world as well, where short-term risks of financial failure outweigh
long-term environmental or social concerns. Clients responsible for the financial
performance of individual projects and initiatives may make aspirational statements
that embrace a sustainable design ethos, but meaningful actions are not likely to
follow if they require any real change in business behavior or priorities.
Heuristics are used to substitute complex questions with simpler ones to break
the cycle of decision-making paralysis and arrive at an answer. Designers may
reframe an inherently complex problem using only a subset of criteria they feel
most comfortable with to define acceptable parameters. When faced with complexity, or a threat to the financial bottom line, it is common to retreat to the traditional
metrics of success.
Sustainable design and production is a multifaceted domain that ideally would
include triple-bottom-line accounting considerations (Elkington 1998). To remain
in business, however, mainstream design practices continue to hew closely to a client’s primary concerns which are often financial. A design firm that consistently and
completely ignores financial, single-bottom-line issues is not viable in the marketplace for long.
Even designers able to successfully expand a single-bottom-line focus to include
a project’s environmental impact often simplify the issues under consideration. To
avoid the complexity that a multivariable matrix of weighted and qualified environmental impact categories introduces, they may optimize a single performance criterion such as energy efficiency, carbon foot print, or waste reduction. Attempting to
treat all impact categories equally would require time and effort that are currently
too resource intensive to integrate into the design process. The next three chapters,
however, present workflow options to realistically consider a wider subset of material environmental impacts using purpose-built tools to do so.
6.1.2 Biases
Cognitive biases are constantly at work in the evaluation of relative threats or benefits. Availability biases work to convince that an event is less likely to occur if there
are no examples available in recent memory; tomorrow’s world will be a lot like
yesterday’s world based on easily retrieved memories (Schwartz et al. 1991).
Confirmation biases promote the searching and accepting of only that information
that supports personal view, beliefs, or values (Nickerson 1998). Hyperbolic discounting is at work in the earlier “fruit or chocolate” example when making more
virtuous or health choices later but take immediate payoffs now. People make
choices today that their future selves would prefer not to have made, despite using
the same reasoning (Laibson 1997). Normalcy biases lead people to minimize or
6.1 Fast and Slow Decisions