ABSTRACT
Designing sustainable futures requires more than new ways to manage our waste, and also necessitates moving beyond the paradigm of finding alternative resources. It requires different attitudes about consumption in general; for us to be lighter, slower, smarter, and more convivial (Thackara, 2005). This will not be easy for designers because at the heart of design is still the connection to the product–whether it be a building, a website, or a campaign. Production of any kind require resources. The key, in this chapter, is to rethink our assumptions about sustainability; and to move beyond what are ideas focused on management and finding alternative resources and towards ways that designers can actively participate in the reduction of consumption in the first place. A critical argument in this chapter is to reframe the idea of sustainability as systems-oriented. The dynamic, fluctuating nature of systems means that it is ever-changing. This paradigm shift is central to thinking about sustainability and resiliency. If the future of design is in designing less, better, how can we design products that need little to no artificial packaging? How can we design packaging that is reusable, up-cyclable? These are the challenges that require new innovations. Some might see this as daunting, but there is also great opportunity for new and innovative ways of thinking about design. Through a systems approach to designing the world, we become attuned to the ebbs and flows of resources, needs, and wants. And ideally, we are becoming more resilient in our ability to consider what is necessity and what is not. But most importantly, it helps us to look more broadly at where design intervention might make the most positive impact and do the least short- and long-term damage. This chapter will focus on the ways that we might think about design as a series of systems that are human-focused, shared, and dependent on cultivating new and different behaviors.
