Sustainable network design: A commercial fabric case study

I use an actor-network perspective to analyze a case study of an environmentally sustainable, commercial textile fabric design. Susan Lyons of DesignTex, Inc., William McDonough of William McDonough and Partners, and Albin Kälin of Rohner Textil AG constructed and maintained a network of people and objects with an environmental focus by anticipating contingencies that continually threatened their network, such as waste disposal, credibility, and financial problems. In response to these contingencies, they developed and implemented environmental tools, such as an environmental design protocol, a life-cycle development methodology, environmental cost accounting procedures, product-evaluation metrics, and employee-management systems. The success of their efforts rests on their ability to recruit network allies by integrating these environmental tools.