This document proposes a Design Collaboratory to help members of the Sustainable Brands community better understand, leverage, and utilize design tools for sustainability through a three-phase approach. The phases include: 1) Sharing existing design tools between members, 2) Exploring how companies integrate design and sustainability, and 3) Developing best practices for scaling the use of design tools. The goal is to gather existing tools, identify opportunities to improve the adoption of design thinking, and create resources to accelerate the broader use of sustainable design.

1. design
collaboratoryproposal for sharing and scaling
design tools in sustainability
Ted Howes for

2. CONTEXT
» Design creates emotionally
resonant products, services,
experiences, business models &
systems.
» Design is also critical for
addressing sustainability
opportunities upstream.
» Well-applied design tools can
both increase the sustainability of
offerings as well as to identify ways
to communicate and connect those
offerings to stakeholders.
» Design can address sustainability
issues in product, systems,
organizational structures,
communications, and services.
2
Method is renowned for applying design to consumer packaged
goods and crafting a better experience for people while enhancing
the environmental performance of their products, packaging, and
manufacturing.

3. OVERVIEW
» There is a desire to explore
sustainable design tools, best
practices in applying those tools
and ways to spread the usage of
design tools through better access.
» This ‘Design Collaboratory’ seeks
to help SB members collaborate
to better understand, leverage and
utilize design tools for sustainability.
» The Collaboratory will be both
a peer to peer network to share
existing design tools between SB
members as well as a forum to help
participating members explore ways
to better integrate design as part of
their sustainability efforts.
3
The ‘Clever Little Bag’ by the renowned design firm FuseProject
for Puma. The design challenge- how to redesign the shoebox to
reduce waste, increase re-use and build on Puma’s greening initia-
tives.

4. PROPOSED OVERALL APPROACH
I. Share: Design tools vary
widely across industries. The
collaboratory will seek out the
best design tools from member
companies and other sources.
Output: a curated and hosted
site of best in class sustainable
design tools to share with the
Sustainable Brands community.
II. Explore: The application
and integration of design varies
widely across organizations.
The collaboratory will explore
how design is understood,
applied and integrated in
different organizational contexts.
Output: assessment of how
organizations are using design
and sustainability as well a gap
assessment of opportunities to
better integrate design.
III. Build: The collaboratory
will explore which tools and
approaches are most effective
for integrating sustainable
design into organizations.
Output: a set of best practices
and tactics for scaling,
spreading and maximizing the
adoption of sustainable design
tools into organizations.
Share
Gather and share
best sustainable
design tools
Explore
Explore and understand
how companies use /
integrate design
Build
Build on gaps to create
a leading edge set
of design tools and
practices
Approach: This Sustainable Brands Collaboratory is a three phase, year-long, and
structured peer-to-peer member forum for understanding, exploring and building on the
best ideas and practices in sustainability to create and/or foster leading edge work. This
collaborative approach takes the best of what exists and builds on it to create tangible tools
and practices for the Sustainable Brands community.
4

5. » Scan the landscape and our membership for a primary
set of Design For Sustainability (DFS) tools, which we’ll all
assess, categorize and organize.
» Host an in-person workshop to connect, share initial
findings and identify directions/opportunities of mutual
interest.
» Identify where and how design is applied and supported
to build a typology of design for sustainability in different
organizational contexts.
» After the workshop collaboratory members will continue
to build out the sustainable design tools to be used on the
Sustainable Brands Forum.
» During intervening monthly calls we’ll share how the
website effort is evolving as well as continue to engage
collaboratory members on content and determining
how/whether an open source approach for the tools is
appropriate.
Share:
Month 1-2
Gather and
share best
sustainable
design tools
5

6. » The ‘how’ of applying design is of equal importance to the
‘what’ of the tools
» We’ll seek to understand best organizational practices
of how design for sustainability tools are utilized in
organizations and ways they are currently integrated.
» We’ll collaborate to produce a framework and synopsis of
the ‘state of the art’ of design for sustainability integration
as well as identify opportunities to improve the uptake of
design tools.
6
Explore:
Month 3-6
Explore and
understand how
companies use /
integrate design

7. » The Collaboratory will gather the best practices and
output from our prior workshops, calls and conversations
to develop a set of best practices on integrating design for
sustainability into organizations as well as an assessment
of common gaps and pitfalls.
» These best practices will be hosted on the Sustainable
Brands Forum and depending on the interest of
Collaboratory members, may be used as workshop
materials in subsequent SB meetings and events.
» These best practices may also be shared in an open
source way to accelerate and encourage their broader
adoption.
7
Build:
Month 6-12+
Build on gaps to
create a leading
edge set of
design tools and
practices

8. ENGAGEMENT & ACTION
» This Design Collaboratory anticipates two in-
person workshops as well as monthly calls for
the participants.
» Participants will be contributing content and
time in building out our common knowledge of
sustainable design tools and best practices- an
hour or two per week.
» As we move from the assessment of existing
tools and practices to creating and sharing
best practices, we may require some design
production resources from Collaboratory
members.
» We will conform with Chatham House rules
during course of this collaboratory. As non-
confidential leading practices and themes
emerge, we will ascertain if the Collaboratory
members want to share this content with a
broader audience.
8
Toolkits for sustainable design don’t just what sustainability address-
es in the design of things, but also how design can be better embed-
ded in organizations to support sustainability intentions.

9. thank you