The Environmental, Social and Economic Challenge
The wider challenge of making products: deforestation, rising carbon dioxide and global warming, and the need for fair trade, seen through environmental, social and economic eyes.
Justify the choices, the way you are assessed
Free interactive practice on the decisions the assessment actually asks you to justify.
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The cost beyond the price
Every product a designer makes has effects far beyond its price tag. Growing and cutting materials can strip forests, making and moving goods adds carbon dioxide to the air, and the people who produce raw materials are not always paid fairly. This module looks at that wider challenge through three lenses: the environment, society and the economy.
Challenge words to know
Learn these before you sort the effects.
Cost against responsibility
A cheap product can carry a hidden cost.
Name the challenge, name the pillar
In the exam, take each effect and place it. Is it mainly an environmental problem, such as lost forests or extra carbon dioxide, a social one, such as unfair pay, or an economic one, such as higher costs? Then give one thing a designer could do about it. Judging a product means weighing all three, not just its price.
Match the challenge
- deforestation
- rising carbon dioxide
- global warming
- unfair pay for producers
- forests cleared for wood or land
- more gas from burning fuels
- the planet slowly heating up
- workers paid too little for their goods
Match the pillar
- losing forests
- fair pay for workers
- the extra cost of doing it right
- a warming planet
- an environmental issue
- a social issue
- an economic issue
- an environmental issue too
What is fair trade?
What does fair trade mean for the people who produce raw materials?
- They are paid a fair price and given better working conditions.
- The goods are given away for free.
- The materials are made as cheap as possible.
- The product is delivered faster.
Environmental problems
Select the TWO effects that are mainly environmental problems.
- Forests cleared to get materials
- More carbon dioxide from making goods
- Workers paid too little
- A responsible product costing more
Count what is saved
A designer plans a product from 10 parts and manages to make 6 of them from recycled material. Subtract to find how many parts still come from new material. What is the answer?
Order the responsible choice
Put the steps of designing more responsibly in order, earliest first.
- Spot the challenge in the product
- Decide which pillar it affects
- Choose a change that helps
- Check it does not add new harm
Complete the summary
Clearing forests for materials is called _____. Burning fuels to make and move goods adds carbon _____ to the air, which drives global _____. Paying producers a fair price and better conditions is known as _____ trade.
Spot the social issues
Tap the TWO effects that are mainly social issues, about people rather than the planet.
- workers paid too little
- poor working conditions
- forests being cleared
- more carbon dioxide in the air
Which pillar?
Read each effect of a product and choose the pillar it mainly belongs to.
- A furniture firm clears a large area of rainforest to get its timber. Which pillar is mainly affected?
- The workers who grow the cotton for a shirt are paid far too little to live on. Which pillar is mainly affected?
- Choosing fair-trade materials makes a product cost more to produce. Which pillar does this mainly involve?
Explain the challenge
Explain the environmental, social and economic challenge that making products creates, and how a designer could respond.
- Describe one environmental problem such as deforestation or carbon dioxide
- Explain why fair trade matters for producers
- Give one change a designer could make to reduce the harm