What is Sustainablilty

On what are European companies like Vitra and Alessi are doing in regards to sustainable manufacture similar to American upcycling practices in place by Herman Miller, Alberto Alessi put it to me:

"I work in a very traditional world in terms of my production. My most notable contribution to that area is maybe, probably, the fact that we are actually producing object(s) that never end. So the word to recycle just doesn't exist in my field."

European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century Symposium 2009