With some significant exceptions, there's a severe lack of good ecodesign educators in North America. In spite of good intentions, the field is still so new that some of our best design teachers aren't up to the task without a crash course - or at least a good update.

Looking to fill the knowledge gap, David Bergman (who complied the Viridian Eco-Furniture List) and Erika Koering have put together Educating the Educators, a travelling seminar course for design teachers.

"Our goal is not to facilitate ecodesign courses. It is to go beyond that first step and have ecodesign become an integral part of design education, to break down the separation and "niche-ing" of ecodesign. Only then will we recognize that ecodesign is not an option, that it is as central and crucial as the other principles by which we evaluate design."

I can attest to its need - and as Metropolis notes, sustainability is only really officially taught in 14% of design programs, and many programs are simply paying lip service, or (cliched as this sounds) hurrying to catch up with european schools.