Sustainability?

A very interesting subject to look at, but sounds a little strange when thinking how could sustainability be used within Interactive Media.

What is sustainability?

Sustainability seeks to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments, both now and into the indefinite future. It is a systemic concept, relating to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society. Its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems. Planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals in a very long term. Sustainability affects every level of organization, from the local neighbourhood to the entire planet.
Full article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

When going over this in my head, I seemed to be referring back to my personal project. My project is based on the idea of producing a process to re-produce interactive media on the fly. Within my project I’m looking at sustainability as a means of continuously improving a design process, resulting in a more efficient way of using natural resources. Such as electric, physical media (pens, paper, e.t.c), water, gas. Also providing a less complicated way of producing rich media, that impacts on the individuals work load resulting in a more efficient & comfortable environment to work in. When looking at sustainability in this way, it seems hard to see how the above could actually make a difference to the environment. This is where the time factor comes into play, if this system was put in place in 2007 and run for 8 years it would save a large quantity of natural resources and provide a very advanced environment designed to deliver one form of product that has been continually developed for a long period of time.

I think this idea of sustainability is relatively new, to the world never mind Interactive Media. But I think sustainability will play a crucial role in the future of design as every other industry. One area of industry I believe should be taking sustainability into account is the film industry.