Art design is one of the important professional fields nowadays. While the concept of sustainable development is advocated worldwide, the sustainable design has become a main support for the social sustainable development and shoulders its own unique mission. By setting forth the concepts of“cradle to cradle”“life cycle assessment”, the thinking and methods of sustainable design are derived from the analysis on five types of energy consumption (embodied energy, grey energy, induced energy, operating energy, disposal energy) during the life cycle of a building or an industrial product and based on the influence of each energy consumption stage on the environment, i.e. the use of green materials featured by health, low carbon, natural degradation or recycling; making full use of recycled materials; saving materials for recycling; saving storage and transport costs through flat packaging; durability and convenient maintenance; reasonable use function and compliance with humanistic principles that can provide guidance for the sustainable design made by the designer.