Jaga delivers ‘provocative’ presentation to inspire change

In preparation for his closing remarks at Toronto’s A World without Oil symposium, Jan Kriekels credits his European laptop for demonstrating a message words cannot describe.

Upon plugging his foreign computer into a power outlet the entire room’s lights went out, cloaking the delegates in darkness.

 “For a moment there was no light and that is what a world without oil looks like,” says Kriekels.

The moment highlights our heavy reliance on fossil fuels, which needs to change in order to create a sustainable world the director of art, research, development and marketing for Jaga says.

Coming from Belgium to present at the Jan. 21 event that convened leading designers to dialogue on achieving a world without oil, Kriekels began by highlighting famous places that will disappear if we choose not to act on climate change. According to Kriekels, provocation is the only way to challenge people’s assumptions and inspire change.

After citing the urgency, Kriekels followed with 10 possible sustainable solutions we have to stop irreversible damage to the planet.

One of the solutions cited is creating products using a cradle-to-cradle design philosophy, something Jaga is already pioneering into its business model. The international radiator manufacturer says products must follow nature’s principles where waste is filtered back into the product’s life cycle.

Products should also be assessed to determine how much energy they take to be built, distributed, consumed and eventually recycled, highlighting an important role for design.
 
Kriekels points to the building of a car, which creates 15 times more waste then the finished product, and if the car is inefficient, the waste is further intensified.

He says companies striving for innovation need to look no further than the natural environment where everything is not only built using cradle-to-cradle design, but is also completely unique.

He says Jaga had its beginnings like many companies designing “monoculture products,” but in the 1990s began to shift to differentiated product design, a lesson the company learned from nature.

The presentation by Dayna Baumeister, cofounder of the Biomimicry Guild, resonated with Kriekels, who says biomimicry is very much in line with Jaga’s vision for design.

“The planet has already made all the solutions, we just have to make them fit together,” says Kriekels.

Holding a design congress in North America was inspiring for him, as it shows “people are feeling conflicted,” and this type of questioning and debate will build a revolutionary road to change.

He adds these types of events are important in bringing people together who share the same consciousness to reinforce their efforts, re-energize their work and create new ideas.

Kriekels provided the closing remarks to approximately 200 delegates at the inaugural Conversations in Design symposium which also featured Sheila Kennedy of Kennedy and Violich Architecture Inc., Ted Howes of IDEO and visionary designer Bruce Mau.

If you have feedback on this article, pleases contact the newsroom at 800-294-0051, ext. 24 or e-mail camille(at)axiomnews.ca.