We are Core Matter
When the world is in chaos, design and a bit of hope can provide a path forward.
The sky was orange.
A few months ago, I stood at my kitchen sink washing dishes. I listened to the late, great congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis in conversation with journalist Krista Tippett. As the sudsy water flowed over my hands, the wildfires raged a few hundred miles away. They’d soon bring smoke-filled skies that would keep us indoors for weeks.
For the moment, John’s words soothed my nervous system, nestled their way into my tired soul.
It wasn’t just the wildfires that had worn me down. It was years’ worth of ongoing climate disaster, seeing neighbors brutalized by police violence and systemic racism, and a devastating pandemic. It was seeing the myriad problems of society further enflamed by a world and an environment in turmoil.
John said protest was an act of love. In the midst of retelling the brutality he faced during the civil rights movement, Krista asked how in the world he stays optimistic. To paraphrase John: “Imagine the world you want to exist, and live as if it already does.”
“Imagine the world you want to exist, and live as if it already does.” — John Lewis
His softness shook me. Despite the seeming chaos of everything, there was still room for hope. These problems were not insurmountable. Hope may be the best way forward.
Understanding the urgency
Climate change is no longer as we’ve long framed it — dire consequences for “future generations.” It’s right now, and right in our backyards. Since I moved to California 6 years ago, summer now means wildfires and evacuations. And my home state of Nebraska has seen record flooding, entire towns wiped away.
By now, the majority of the world (and you reading this) are aware of the climate doom and gloom that’s around the corner. And that doom can be pretty paralyzing.
Finding climate solutions is a team sport
When Project Drawdown was published — a book and body of research identifying solutions to climate change and quantifying their impact — for the first time, climate change felt, to some degree manageable. Or at the very least, like I could wrap my brain around it, and what tackling it could look like.
Founder Paul Hawken often says, “We don’t need one big idea, we need lots of little ones.” Like a big group project we could tackle together.
So our team at Core Matter figures, if we want to see more climate solutions in the world, we can break out of that paralysis by living in the world as we want it to exist — to take a page out of John’s book. We can start ideating using the skills we have. Look where the biggest problems are, and try out some of these little solutions in our own city. So we’re rolling up our sleeves up and getting to it.
A human-centered process
As designers, we’ve seen over the years how effective human-centered design can be to solve problems.
The process looks different for each team. For our team, we think of human-centered design as a creative problem-solving process to empathize with people and test out potential solutions to meet their needs. It allows for both pragmatic and creative thinking, and feeds on collaboration at every phase. (IDEO.org has a great video about human-centered design).
Human-centered design is a creative problem-solving process to empathize with people and test out potential solutions to meet their needs
The steps we follow:
- Define the problem
- Research and interview
- Ideate
- Prototype
- Test and iterate
- Rollout
Design thinking then adds a layer of meaning — assessing if possible solutions are feasible, viable, and desirable in the real world. (Here’s IDEO’s definition of design thinking).
We’ve seen how organizations like Ylabs and IDEO.org apply human-centered design and design thinking to human health problems. But they weren’t explicitly focusing on climate change. So, we’re applying the same process to climate change.
Some of our favorite examples of design thinking in action:
- Here in San Francisco, The Ocean Cleanup is cleaning trash out of our oceans with a rig designed to move passively with ocean waves.
- Also in the Bay, Inneract Project is getting more kids of color into the design field by teaching them skills and exposing them to the field at a young age. They’re making the field more diverse by improving the talent pipeline.
- In India, The Pad Project is empowering women with jobs making pads and reducing the stigma of menstruation in India.
The why before the what
Before we get too set on WHAT we’re designing, we look at the whole life cycle of a problem and where possible solutions could fit. We think of the human-centered design process as a tool to shed preconceived notions of how a problem ought to be solved. Then we can see it in a new light. The most obvious approach has often been done before, and maybe it wasn’t designed effectively or equitably in the first place.
A people problem
People are at the core of human-centered design. People’s needs, wants, desires, behaviors.
When looking at the people affected by climate change, we’ve long known that environmental issues disproportionately affect BIPOC communities.
To best understand, we need to consult history. For example, let’s focus on housing. In the early 1900s, redlining pushed people of color out of affluent residential areas and into neighborhoods near industrial sites. Over time, this means people of color are more likely to live near sites like power plants and landfills (whose emissions contribute heavily to climate change). These folks then experience higher rates of related health problems, like respiratory diseases, and fatalities. The examples of environmental racism go on: Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have drinkable water. Fracking rates are high on Native American reservations. And as far as the design of products, climate solutions often continue to prioritize wealthy, often white people — A lot of “green” products are expensive and not affordable, thus failing to effect where they’re needed most.
Thanks to the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw and others, we’re beginning to understand the very real intersectionality of environmental and social justice. And the Black Lives Matter movement is reminding us of the urgency to take action. So it shouldn’t be surprising that Americans of color are more likely to be environmentalists.
This inequality doesn’t have to be our reality, but we do need to make a change. Antionette Carroll of CRX Lab says “Systems of oppression, inequality, and inequity are by design. Therefore, they can be redesigned.” Each of us in our professions need to take a step back, listen, and take responsibility.
“Systems of oppression, inequality, and inequity are by design. Therefore, they can be redesigned.” — Antionette Carroll
So for our part, this means changes in our design process. We will prioritize the lived experiences of historically underinvested communities in interviews and research. We’ll prioritize diverse collaborators. We’ll ensure solutions are accessible by all communities. It’s important to clearly build equitability into our process. Our process is continuing to evolve as we continue learning.
What are our goals?
Broadly speaking, our goals are:
- Look into the most pressing climate issues by looking at the problems on a local level
- Test and prototype possible solutions — which can take the form of products, technologies, tools, campaigns
- Share our research with the design, equity, and sustainability communities, and our local communities
We’ve started putting this process into action.
See about our pilot project on centralized composting in our next post.
