A new iPhone app allows designers to check the sustainability of the materials they are considering using in new products, reports Wired.
Nike wanted to encourage other manufacturers to make use of the data, so put the the Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) on the web. However, the company thought the MSI was more likely to be used at the production stage, by which time many of the material decisions would already have been made. Nike figured designers were more likely to factor in the MSI data if it were available as an app.
We think Nike is right. While we might sometimes wonder why someone bothers to create an app that simply scrapes data from a perfectly good website and packages it in an app, I can see designers playing with a friendly and colorful app in downtime and learning more about potential product materials when they might not bother to visit the site.
The app is a free download from iTunes.
