ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the new design approach and new design capabilities required by designers to operate at such a level. In this new approach, designers would first need to focus on a broader design scope where the ideation of sustainable Product-Service Systems (PSS) concepts should be coupled with the designing of appropriate transition paths. Eco-efficient PSS innovations are in most cases a radical innovation because they challenge existing institutions, customers' habits and lifestyles, companies' organisational structures and regulative frameworks. An eco-efficient PSS is not a technological innovation; of course it can include technological artefacts, but the innovative element is mainly related to the social dimension. In fact, rather than a new technological artefact, an eco-efficient PSS can be seen as a new form of social organisation. Strategic design could thereby play a role not only in generating eco-efficient PSS concepts, but also in designing transition paths to support and facilitate the introduction and scaling-up of the concept itself.
