Designer and design educator, Yair Engel is particularly involved with sustainable design. He operates a design studio in Tel-Aviv, working with the industry on sustainable design scenarios and industrial designs projects and offering consulting services to government ministries and environmental organisations. As a design lecturer, Yair teaches sustainability and design in several academies.

Co-founder and director of Kayama – Center for Sustainable Design in Israel, a registered NGO, local liaison for the O2 international network of sustainable designers, aiming to develop awareness and research on sustainable considerations in design and development through education, academic research, seminars, workshops, conferences, consultancy, design exhibitions and publications.

Yair also operates as Treasurer and elected member of the Board of the Israel Community of Designers, which represents the community of practicing professional designers in Israel. The organisation is interdisciplinary and is structured in such a way as to permit each specialty to deal with its own specific needs and interests yet work as one when dealing with issues affecting the entire community of designers.

Yair Engel is one of the featured designers of “Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet,” an innovative project that uses the medium of public art to inspire individuals and organisations to take action against global warming.

We over consume. Our consumerism is turning to an obsessive disease. The Western world is in the grip of a consumption binge that is unique in human history. The global economy is using natural resources faster than they can be renewed. The products we consume affect global warming on each step of their life cycle from the resources they use, throughout the energy consumption, waste production and toxic emissions involved in their manufacturing, transport, distribution , consumption and disposal processes.

Sustainability does not require a loss in the quality of life, but does require a change in mind-set, a change in values toward less consumptive lifestyles. These changes must embrace global interdependence, environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and economic viability.

For more information on the Cool Globes project
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Photo courtesy of Buzz Orr