I’ve been following Bruce Sterling ever since I was introduced to his notion of the spime in his book Shaping Things – which overlaps with my ongoing research on sustainable design and life cycle thinking. I am fascinated with the diversity and breadth of Sterling’s interests and involvement in multiple communities both virtual and physical, and particularly his passion for design education given his background. In a recent designboom interview with Sterling, he was asked whether he thought design is living up to its potential. To which he responded:

Yes and no… Design should be ambitious and it should sort of try to flow into the nooks and crannies of society and help people out. It does rather a lot of that, more so than a lot of other fields. You know if you were to ask me ‘is the military living up to their potential?’ I think they're doing a poorer job than designers. ‘is the law living up to it's potential?’ you know the law is a noble pursuit, but do we have justice? No! If you're a lawyer should you be contented at the state of the legal profession? You know, probably not, but should you give up being a lawyer? No!

Design is certainly not lacking ambition in the news today. Between Coke announcing concrete goals for environmental progress, Boeing exhibiting, a 75-gallon tank of bright green algae, the potential feeding ground for a jet fuel substitute at this year’s Air Show where sustainability is the dominant buzz word, and today, July 28^th 2008, in the Mojave Desert, CA, USA, Virgin Galactic unveiled their new mothership and is currently preparing for test flights. (Thanks to PSFK for letting me know!)

The vessel is being touted as the most energy efficient aircraft in history, by most definitions. An all carbon composite vehicle of this size represents a giant leap for a material technology that has already been identified as a key contributor to the increasingly urgent requirement by the commercial aviation sector for dramatically more fuel efficient aircraft.

In the press release, Branson notes: “Virgin Galactic is central to our ambition at Virgin to become the world’s leading group in the operation of energy and environmentally efficient transportation, in the air, on the ground and in space.”

And how is this for marketing brilliance.. Branson announced: "We are naming it Eve after my Mother, Eve Branson but also because it represents a first and a new beginning, the chance for our ever growing group of future astronauts and other scientists and payload specialists to see our world in a completely new light."

No doubt, how these mega-brands decide how to communicate their sustainability initiatives, how they choose to "flow into the nooks and crannies of society and help people out", will continue to be paramount to sustained success. No apologies, please.