Sustainable design encourages manufacturers to consider social and environmental
impacts whilst generating economic benefits (Macdonough & Braungart, 2002). Bhamra &
Lofthouse (2007) state that sustainable design can provide business opportunities to
organisations though cost reduction and increased marketability. Promoting sustainable
design activity has the potential to stimulate the Thai economy by responding to a global
trend in sustainability. Despite this, few manufacturers have the capacity to integrate
sustainability into their products due to inadequate sustainable design knowledge. Various
learning strategies and materials have been developed internationally, however, they
cannot be productively incorporated into Thai design education for reasons discussed in
this paper. This paper presents the partial findings from PhD research that proposes to
develop a more appropriate approach for learning and teaching sustainable design in
Thailand. It provides overview of education for sustainability, then outlines the current
status of sustainable design in Thailand by dividing into three sectors: government,
business, and education. The study commenced with a review of relevant literature and
secondary data, which indicated a limited amount of material for the Thai context. Primary
data collection was undertaken to address this shortfall through semi-structured interviews
with experts participated in sustainable design activities. The findings indicated that
Thailand has increased its focus on sustainability over recent years; a range of sustainable
design initiatives has been carried out. However, the implementation of sustainable design
in Thailand is not widespread because of three main obstacles. Firstly, imbalance between
the three pillars of sustainability — most sustainable design activities have given priority to
economic issues. Secondly, a lack of solid linkage among the initiatives — most of them
have run individually and have not resulted in significant impacts. Thirdly, Thailand is
lacking in sustainable design knowledge — most participants involved in these initiatives
lack an understanding of this concept.
DRS 2012 Bangkok
