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It covers the key introductory principles of sustainable design and asks why there are so few examples of genuine Design for Sustainability when the need for it is so clear and urgent.

The website has grown to become the leading online resource for students and professionals around the world looking for practical sustainable product design information, and is completely free to use.

The new website has been designed by the sustainable branding specialists Scamper Branding and utilises the open source WordPress platform.

Check it out at www.ESPDesign.org

Now you have the opportunity to view some of the remarkable work being generated by students at the College, as they launch an environmentally themed online exhibition, Sustain.

Here’s a snippet from the RCA website:

Crucially, Sustain offers a glimpse of the many ways in which design can feed into making the world a more sustainable place. We very much believe it points the way forward for a whole new way of thinking. As Sophie Thomas, Director of Thomas Matthews and Board member on the Design Council, says about the ‘unique responsibility’ of designers: “It is now time for the design industry to roll up its sleeves and get stuck into the biggest challenge of our generation.”

View the online exhibition at www.rca.ac.uk/sustain

One of my favourites is HuMo, a power generating system for athletes, shown below.

The Wottle is a challenge to the bottled spring water industry, with disposable plastic bottles often carrying water from faraway sources. It is obvious that carrying your own water bottle with tap water is better to the environment than buying spring water, but this fact clearly isn’t enough to persuade millions of consumers from buying bottled water. They think it tastes better (even if it doesn’t), is better for their health (even if it isn’t) and through careful brand marketing, bottled water makes people feel good about themselves.

The Wottle attempts to make tap water attractive through a clever brand partnership. It features designer Orla Kiely’s signature leaf design, to not only make the bottle beautiful, but to add value and encourage the bottle to be treasured and used for a long time. In addition to this it is marketed by Brita, the water filter the company, who are perfectly positioned to highlight the fact that tap water can be equally if not more pure than bottled water.

On top of this, they’ve branded the bottle itself to create a perception that this is something more than just an ordinary water bottle with the name Wottle being catchy and lovable.

Its critics will say that they have simply made an unremarkable water bottle from recycled plastic, with a designer print and a clever name, and technically they would be right, but by bringing a number of different sustainable design strategies together, they may actually be successful in encouraging some consumers to cut down on the bottled water consumption, which can only be a good thing.

The design wouldn’t appeal to everyone and the colour scheme chosen does make it look rather like an Ecover washing-up liquid bottle, but it is still a great example of what can be achieved with a little thought and will hopefully help stimulate the market for reusable bottles in the same way that we have recently seen designers help encourage use of reusable shopping bags.

Comment on this post to tell us what you think about the Brita Wottle.

Tom Greenwood is a brand consultant at Scamper Branding and creator of the sustainable design resource www.ESPDesign.org.