How to Design for Sustainability Part 2 — Different Tactics and Scales

This is part four in a series of four articles on Design for Sustainability. Each of them can be read independently.

In the previous article we looked at why a needs-based approach is essential as a foundation to any design practice for sustainability. We looked at what that entails and how to operationalize it.

In this last article on the theme we will connect back to the first article as we attempt to create an overview that can orient practical and more clearly defined ways forward.

Model adapted from a blogpost by Dr. Idil Gaziulusoy (2012)

In the first article we explored why a design practice for the 21st century must be for sustainability. We discovered how a systemic approach to design is critical as it opens up the space of possibilities and potential for greater sustainbility impact through designs that scale and influences systems change. While a systemic design practice holds the promise of greater systemic impact it simultaneously demands more of the designer in terms of being able to analyze and orient through complexity as the designer will need to increase and widen the circles of concern as the arena of the practice expands through time and space making way for much more pro-active, long term and circular design solutions.

So if DfS is such a broad field that it is concerned with every man made invention (material or immaterial) across boarders and domains and even generations how can we get a grasp of it and make it operational? — how can we cut this field up into workable arenas and tactics that can show examamples of practical and appropriate ways forward?

This model inspired by the work of Idil Gaziulusoy and Fabrizio Ceschin offers a way to understand not only the different subfields of DfS, but also their relationship with each other as it pertains to how systemic the solutions of the approach are and to what extend the solutions of the approach are more focused on people (often more immaterial) or technology (often more material).

Model adapted from Fabrizio Ceschin & Dr. Idil Gaziulusoy (2016)

It does so by carving out four main “levels” of design that are different in kind in that they become increasingly systemic and increasingly incorporate social and immaterial aspects into the design solutions pertaining to the level. The for levels are the following:

• Product level: This is e.g. where industrial design and fashion design belongs. The level where the designs are mainly material and what is being designed is that product. The sustainable impact of designs at this level is restricted to and dependent on the production and use of the product.
• Product-Service-System Level: This is where design of entire service delivery systems belong — e.g. sharing economy apps (which are really not just apps, but service-systems delivered through an app). What is designed here is not just the service, but also the systems and products through which the service is produced and delivered. What is actually designed for is the function or use value. The sustainable impact of designs at this level has the potential to reach pretty far across systems and domains of society as these designs are tend to change consumer behaviour and disrupt markets. In addition there is often a complex web of productions, delivery channels and consumption points associated with these systems — all of which have the potential to have a negative or positive sustainability impact — both at the material/environmental and immaterial/social domain.
• Spatio-Social Level This is where complex systems are designed which facilitate and influence social behaviour and human development. This could e.g. be educational design or the educational system. It could also be urban areas such as parks, which frame a set of possibilities for action and facilitate certain behaviours while having effects on our mental state and enabling certain relationships to form. Relationships that are informed by that context. What is designed here may be structures (more or less immaterial), but what is being designed for is the social and psychological effects associated with the human engagement with those structures. Because the effects of such designs have great impact not only on individuals, but potentially large groups or even generations and because the effects may manifest at a psychological level the effects of the design here has a great potential to scale and impact the change of societies and systems at a broad and deep level.
• Socio-Technical Level This level has a lot of similarities with the privious level, but involves technologies to a larger degree and thus the solutions designed at this level increases their potential for systemic change impact even further as they include more domains of society. This could e.g. be the design associated with planning, building and administration of entire cities; including infrastructure such as the design of electrical systems, water mangement systems, transportation systems. In this way the design solutions here consists of designs that alters systems that influence other systems with which they constitute larger systems.

All transition between the levels is fluid or gradual, but the deliniations helps us understand how we can design at different levels of systemic complexity and in doing so we can scale the potential sustainability impact of our solutions. As designs involve more elements of society and the environment their effect also potentially spreads across more domains and aspects of society and the environment. Whether the impact i sustainable depends on whether the sustainbility principles (presented in the second and third article of this series) are respected and to what extend they are respected across the entire production, delivery and use cycle of the design. So, simply scaling your design and making it more systemic and complex does not make it more sustainable by default. Obviously. It simply increases it´s impact potential — be that impact positive or negative.

So this model simply helps us map the various sub-fields of DfS and approximate the overlaps and relationships between the subfields in terms of how much the approaches and solutions of the sub-field are oriented towards being systemic and social (human-centric) in nature — involving the various often immaterial aspects of human life.

Each of these sub-fields have their own focus areas and tactics though they also share certain tools and approaches. So, let's try to outline some of these different approaches and tactics as we take a closer look inside selected sub-fields and flesh them out through examples in an attempt to unfold a few of the elements that this vast mosaic of DfS is made up of at a tactical and practical level.

Different tactics to Design for Sustainability

To arrive at a sustainable solution to a given design challenge, many guiding paths can be taken, but there are a number of emerging and established archetypical approaches worth knowing; each appropriate for a given type of design challenge. We could call these design tactics. They often fall within an intersection between two or more of the sub-fields shown in the model above. Some of the most common tactics to designing for sustainability are:

• Design according to natures principles (Biomimicry) — Common to approaches within this tactic is the intention to harness the intelligence of the evolutionary process, by identifying, observing and decoding solutions in nature that addresses the needs of the design challenge. In that way being inspired by “the genius of life” when designing. Not only does this approach hold the promise of making the design process more effective by taking advantage of the vast existing library of solutions that already are available in nature; it also holds the promise of bringing about better solutions that are more effective and impactful because they work in accordance with how nature works by adopting and respecting natural principles. For example using the energy captured from the sun by photovoltaic panels -> to move those same panels during the day according to the movement of the sun -> to then optimize sun exposure and increase energy production output — thus exploiting the natural heliotropic principle which can be observed in “behaviour” of plants; specifically mimicking sun flowers as they turn their heads towards the sun all day.
• Sustainable Product-Service-System Design — In this approach the designers think in total solutions. Not only does one design a service, but also designs the logistics of how to deliver the service to the users — including various supporting material and/or immaterial products. An obvious example here belongs to the so-called sharing economy. Where sharing platforms (often apps) are designed and coded to match (in time and place) owners with excess capacities of a good (facility, service or product with a use value) with users in need of access to this good. The service could be accommodation as is the case with AirBnB or it could be transportation as is the case with Uber. What these businesses have in common is that the product is a service delivered through a system and what is being designed for is the function that the user needs. These companies produce immaterial IT platforms for these transactions — thus facilitating both the matching, the monetary exchange and the delivery of the service. A total product-service-system solution. Neither of these companies are as presently ontructed particularly sustainable as such. However, the sharing economy at large does hold a potential to bring down material consumption through sharing utilities and could at the same time promote greater levels of social sustainability by enabling access to services for people who would not otherwise have that access. A better example of a sustainable product service system (S.PSS) would be a car sharing service, which contrary to Uber would surely result in fewer cars on the road, thus less GHG emissions from combustion and less traffic accidents and less material consumption for car production. Taking the S.PSS design further such a company could aim to in time only involve electrical vehicles and design for the path of getting there by incentivizing owners of electrical vehicles to participate and co-investing in the necessary infrastructure that supports such a transition.
• Design for a Circular Economy (Cradle-to-Cradle design) — Moving away from a linear “take-make-waste” model of exploitative resource-extraction, production and a careless trend driven use and throw away consumer culture this approach aims to complete the product life cycle by effectively reusing (or re-purposing, restoring) the materials of a product at the end of use point. Thus recycling or upcycling and effectively closing the loop and starting a new one without material leaks into eco-systems. In doing so holding as many resources as possible flowing within the production and consumption context through closed socio-technical product-service-systems that do not leak synthetics and waste into the biosphere. Potentially bringing down ecological footprint through less raw resource extraction, material input per service (aka. MIPS — a measure of material consumption in production process) -> thus lowering production costs and waste while potentially bringing up energy efficiency and improving total user experience.

• Design for Sustainable Behaviour — there are many tools, theories and approaches within this design tactic, but most attempt to either a) make it easier for people to adopt the desired behaviour; b) make it harder for people to perform the undesired behaviour; c) making people want to perform the desired behaviour; d) making people not want to perform the undesired behaviour. This could be achieved through e.g. nudging. When designing for sustainable behaviour it is of importance to have a thorough background understanding of social psychology, cognitive biases and behavioral economics. An example of nudging for sustainability could be an opt out rather than an opt in on organ donation. This would help increase the number of donors thus making more organs available to more people promoting equality of health, which is an important aspect of social sustainability. It could also be the product-service-system of bottle recycling as constructed in Denmark, where a bottle lending fee is placed on plastic bottles and aluminium cans upon purchase of a beverages. This fee is refunded via automated machines when the bottle is returned to the recycling system, where beverage companies either clean and refill them for another cycle or reuse the material for new containers. Thus, creating a closed system — a circular economy — with less material end-of-use waste and less material consumption in the production.
• Sustainable Business Model Design (for Creating Shared Value) — in a 2011 HBR special report the economists Michael E. Porter and Mark E. Kramer proposed the concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV) as the next serious step for businesses in the 21st century and as the successor to CSR; which could be considered outdated and severely inadequate at best. Not that there is anything wrong with corporations taking social responsibility — we definitely need more of that more than ever, but the way CSR has been executed by most companies has largely been as a minor appendix to the daily operations and primary value creation. A CSV approach brings social responsibility to the centre of the business by integrating it into the primary value proposition and value creation activities. Thus, making the main production and income sources part of the solution to issues of stakeholders in and even beyond the immediate external environment of the business. This can contribute to making the context that the business operates in much more favorable to the operation long term. This also serves as added value to the product and brand and can be a competitive advantage as well as make for better, lasting and broader costumer and end user relations. It can also help improve employee engagement and motivation thus both attracting and retaining talent and a quality work force. In that way CSV goes way beyond CSR. It makes business itself part of the solution to the sustainability challenge at large as well as the specific sustainability issues relevant to the context that the business operates in. When designing business models for CSV sustainability and social responsibility becomes success criteria for every part of the business model. CSV is not the end-all in sustainable business model design. It is an aspect. One that has also been critiqued as also not being enough. Some claim we need to move further to a CSV 2.0 — Creating Systemic Value. Being a systemic practioner I would agree. Which is why I am working on creating an open source tool for designing sustainable business models in a way where both a scientific and systemic approach is integrated with traditional and ecological economics. There are a few so called “Sustainable Business Model Canvas” tools out there, but unfortunately non of them are adequate or properly anchored in science or systemic thinking.
• Design for the Base of the Pyramid (DfBoP) — as opposed to prestigious and fashionable design for the Top of the Pyramid (DfToP), a BoP approach seeks to use design to solve real world problems and needs of the “lowest” and largest socio-economic classes. Such solutions could include policy design that directly addresses socio-economic inequalities and cultural injustice, but could also be market driven products, services or systems that indirectly promote greater equality of opportunity such as say the cell phone payment and transfer solutions that initially took off in African countries and enabled more actors, businesses and transactions in a growing local market economy. Thus facilitating small scale entrepreneurship and promoting more social susatinablity. It could also be the design of a systemic structural cross-sector solution such as a product-service-system that solves all aspects related to addressing the need for supply of clean drinking water for all. The needs are endless. So are the solutions.

• Design for Social and Political Innovation — This could be design of legislations and policies that collectively bring down structural inequality of opportunity in society, but it could also be an interactive citizen platform that drives cultural as well as political change in society. As an example, the progressive green party The Alternative was started in Denmark in 2013 as a movement and a protest against reactive neoclassical policies of austerity and a prevailing ingrained single minded focus on growth of GDP rather than sustainability conceptualized systemically. It was also a movement facilitating the emergence of a new collaborative political culture of courage, trust, humility, empathy, generosity and humor — amongst other initiatives hosting citizen engagement in the form of deliberative democracy processes effectively crowdsourcing new policy development through co-creation - thus inviting both party members and regular citizens on board as part of the solution to form the political program of the party. The party succeeded in getting into parliament in 2015 and has since spent it´s time there legitimizing the sustainability debate and upping the standards for that debate to the point where it was the single most important voter topic in the previous election. Additionally, most other parties in parliament have now adopted many of The Alternative’s policies for sustainable development, which at the time of the initiation of the movement was deemed unrealistic and impossible by most other parties and so called expert analysts and commentators. Thus, the party may now through success have outplayed its role as a societal change project designed for social and political innovation. As such an example of a project-party that was designed as “a piece of” politicial innovation to fullfil a need and a purpose.

Design for democratic participation and green party-politics (as a movement) in practice

• Design for Eco-Efficiency (through PSS design) — The B2B solution Phillips Pay Per Lux concept is a great example of a product-service-system that has the potential to optimize for energy efficiency. By altering the business model from selling lamps and lightbulbs to selling periods of certain amounts of light in a certain area of client facilitates both Phillips and their clients have an incentive towards more sustainable behaviour. The client company has a monetary incentive (on top of the ethical incentive) to use as little light as possible, while Phillips has a monetary incentive (on top of the ethical incentive) to deliver that light in the most efficient way. Thus, Phillips will want to install new and updated lamps and lightbulbs as a service provided that the contract for the service spans a timeframe where the profit gains related to the energy efficiency gains of the upgrade will be larger than the investment in the upgraded equipment. The client company in turn is relieved from having to invest in lighting equipment and maintain and update that equipment. They simply get what it is they really need and want — the use value of light. Energy efficiency gains not only leads to profit gains from savings related to the cost of energy consumption, this lower energy usage also brings down the environmental footprint of the production/company thus contributing to CSR, Carbon Budgets and may help them comply with local regulations and/or specific relevant standards for emissions.
• Design for Health (Salutogenic Design) — This could be design of legislation and policies that promote better and more equal access to healthcare for all citizens, but it could also be architecture of a hospital that takes into consideration how the building should be shaped and made to optimize factors such as sanitation, patient interactions and air quality to ensure that patients and hospital workers do not leave the hospital having acquired new illnesses or complications. Something that is obviously more relevant than over during the ongoing COVID pandemic. It could also be city planning that takes into consideration the well-being promoting effects of green spaces and outdoor spaces that facilitate physical activity, socializing and sustainable commuting (biking and low emission public transportation).

• Design for climate mitigation (climate engineering as well as creating social resiliency and adaptive capacity) — This could be anything that enables a community or a society to alter, minimize or withstand the effects of climate change either at the root or downstream. At the downstream end, it could be the design of dams for preventing floods in coastal communities due to sea level rise related to global warming or severe weather — both direct or indirect consequences of climate change. Closer to the source of the problem it could also be Carbon Capture Storage (CCS) technologies, such as biochar production and use in farming practices as a soil improvement agent with added benefit of carbon sinking and more efficient and clean food production of potentially more healthy produce.

There are many more design tactics for sustainability, that are worth considering, such as:

• Design for sustainable transitions (creating bridges and stepping stones to a sustainable future)
• Systemic Design (has been unfolded throughout this series)
• Ecodesign (see example of approach in model below)
• Etc.

For now I will let you explore those further on your own. Perhaps you can use the links or sources I have provided in this article series.

Integrating it all & wrapping up

The intentional use of one of these tactics does not exclude another. Rather most of them can and should ideally support each other in a design process for sustainable solutions. Being aware of what tactics are available and which are appropriate for the design challenge can help focus the design process to achieve desired outcomes of greater real world impact. Many of these design tactics are already well elaborated and broadly practiced and can be considered entire “schools of design” with their own specific theories, tools and principles. Here is an example of an ecodesign tool designed by PermissionToPlay that links systemic thinking, product life cycle mapping with innovation for optimization of resource consumption and minimization of ecological footprint. A good tool to use as a check list to inform the design process by expanding the systemic awareness and domains of concern that are implicated in the design solution.

No matter what design tactic is chosen and no matter the design objective it is necessary to conduct some kind of life-cycle-assessment (LCA) of the final solution in order to ensure that the entire production process of the solution is sustainable and not counteracting the use value and intended impact of bringing the solution to the end user. An LCA must encompass a mapping of the resource inputs and outputs at each production step of the supply chain as well as the distribution, use and end of life steps of its cycle. For immaterial designs this evaluation is going to be a little different, but is still important. An LCA can be conducted both quantitatively and qualitatively. If done quantitatively it is important to be mindful of the system boundary and ensure that the functional unit is the right metric and the most relevant and valid parameter. Especially when comparing solutions and production processes. If the LCA is done qualitatively the sustainability principles from the FSSD can be used to determine whether the solution is indeed socio-ecologically sustainable or not and in what ways, by identifying exactly what principles are being violated, how and where in the life-cycle. In this way, the sustainability principles can inform the design process and qualify the design — thus assisting the designers in ensuring that the final solution will indeed be sustainable in a scientific and systemic sense.

If you want to learn more about DfS you can sign up for one of the ongoing open courses on Design for Sustainability that I offer with my partners. Coming up this winter/spring is this short online course offered with the KAOSPILOT school of meaningful design, leadership and entrepreneurship:

Design for Sustainability - Kaospilot

You are also welcome to reach out to me. I am always working on methods and concepts that couples Systemic Thinking, Design Practices with Sustainbility Science for better and more impactful design for sustainability. And I would love to hear your thoughts on that. You are welcome to contact me on:

mikkel@consult-pilgaard.com

If you are still with me and have been since the first article in this series I want to thank you for your attention and engagement and let you know that I hope to see your work make a more sustainable difference by design.

In pursuit of that I invite you to take a moment to consider:

• How systemic is my design practice?
• How human-centered is my design practice?
• How eco-conscious is my design practice?
• What subfield of DfS do I operate in?
• At what level are my design solutions? — how great is the potential sustainability impact of my designs?
• How can I use the various tactics, ideas and principles presented in this article series to bring my designs to the next level?

I am curious to know your answers to these questions, so please throw me a comment or message if you feel like it. If you do not agree with my premise and conclusion of this article I am particularly curious to hear your argument(s) and perspectives from another position.

Best of winds out there. A sustainable future is on all of us. The needs are endless. So are the solutions. Remember, there is always at least one alternative to the current version of reality and DfS is a powerful approach that you need to practice in order to contribute to the change we all need.

“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.” — Gregory Bateson

Sources

Bateson, Gregory. 2000. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press. IL; US.

Braungart, Michael & William McDonough. 2002. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; NY, US.

Ceschin, Fabrizio & Idil Gaziulusoy. 2020. ”Design for Sustainability; A Multi-level Framework from Products to Socio-technical Systems”. London (UK) & New York (US): Routledge.

Pauli, Gunter. 2017. The Blue Economy 3.0: The Marriage of Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Creates a New Business Model that Transforms Society. XLibris.

Porter, Michael E. & Mark R. Kramer. 2011. “Creating Shared Value”. Harvard Business Review. January-February Issue: 1–17.

Robért, Karl-Henrik, Göran Broman et al.. 2019. ”The Sustainability Handbook, Second Edition”. Lund, Studentlitteratur AB.

United Nations Environment Programme & Delft University of Technology. 2009. ”Design for Sustainability; A Step-by-Step Approach”. UNEP.

Vezzoli, Carlo & Fabrizio Ceschin et al.. 2018. Designing Sustainable Energy for All — Sustainable Product-Service System Design Applied to Distributed Renewable Energy. Springer International Publishing.