SUSTAINABILITY = u One of them is the search for efficiency in dealing with information, energy and production in the quest for lean production, with products specifically created not only for whoever needs them when he or she needs, but also in the same place (or at least, as near as possible to the place) where it will be used or consumed. The second strong motivation is the desire to use local and minimal resources. A third motivation is an interest in “quality of proximity”: a perceived quality deriving from the direct experience of the place where a product comes from and of the people who produce it, as with the creation of new local food networks in which citizens and farmers are linked at the local level. [19,20] Last but not least, there is a growing demand for self-sufficiency (in food, energy, water, and products), in order to promote community resilience to external threats and problems. [22,7] STRENGTHENING SYSTEMS. Focusing on local resources and reducing distances between production and use can result in stronger systems and more resilient communities. SUSTAINABLE QUALITIES Distributed systems are the result of complex, innovative processes in which technological components cannot be separated from social ones. While centralised systems can be developed without considering the social fabric in which they will be implemented, this imposition is impossible when the technological solution in question is a distributed one; the more a system is networked, the larger is its interface with society and the more the social side of innovation has to be considered. In other words, with regards to our discussion here, we can say that no resilient systems can exist without social innovation. Considered all that, the good news is that social innovation is spreading worldwide. [16,17] And that the emerging ways of living and producing these innovations generate are largely convergent with the trend toward resilient distributed systems. In fact, in its complexity and with all its contradictions, contemporary society is developing a growing number of interesting cases in which people have invented new and more sustainable ways of living. [15] We are increasingly seeing, for example, groups of families sharing services to reduce economic and environmental costs, while also improving their neighborhoods; new forms of social interchange and mutual help, such as time banks; systems of mobility that present alternatives to individ- ual ownership and use of cars, such as car sharing, car pooling, and the rediscovery of bicycles; and the development of productive activities based on local resources and skills that are linked to wider global net- works (e.g., certain products typical of a specific place, or the fair and direct trade networks between producers and consumers established around the globe). Further examples touch on every area of daily life and are emerging all over the world. (To read more about them, see: DESIS.) [4] Being localized, small, connected and open (to others’ ideas, culture and physical presence), these promising social innovations actively contrib- ute to the realization of resilient, distributed socio-technical systems. And vice versa: distributed socio-technical systems may become the enabling infrastructure of a society where these kinds of social innova- tions can flourish and spread. [12] Behind each of these promising social innovations there are groups of people who have generated them — groups of creative and entre- preneurial people who invented, enhanced and managed innovative solutions, recombining what already exists without waiting for larger changes in the system (in the economy, in institutions, in large infra- structures). Creative communities that challenge traditional ways of doing things introduce behaviours that, often, present unprecedented capacities for bringing individual interests into line with social and environmental ones (for example, they often incidentally reinforce the social fabric). In doing so, these communities generate ideas about a more sustainable wellbeing — a wellbeing where greater value is given to a new set of qualities. [8] People involved in these innovations compensate for their reduction in consumption of goods and space with an increase in something else that they consider more valuable. This “something else” is qualities of their physical and social environments that, for them, substitute for the unsustainable qualities that have been predominant in industrial societies until now. The most evident newly valued qualities are the rec ognition of complexity as a value; the search for dense, deep, and lasting relationships; the redefinition of work and collaboration as central human expressions; and the human scale of the socio-technical systems and its positive role in the definition of a democratic, human-centered, sustainable society. The qualities that these frameworks generate radically diverge from the ones that mainstream models have spread worldwide in the last century. For this reason, we can refer to them, as a whole, as “disruptive qualities” — qualities that clash with mainstream ways of thinking and doing. In this battle between cultural and behavioral models, several different social actors play a role. Among them designers (who are, or should be, the most influential players when the topic at stake is daily life expe- rience and its quality) are doing their part, on both the sides of the front. In the past, they did a lot to promote the past century’s unsus- tainable qualities. Today, many of them are continuing in this same old direction. But others are starting to play a different role (and a poten- tially very important one) in promoting the new, sustainable, disruptive qualities. This battle is still at its beginning. It is, and will be, a dramatic, fascinating confrontation.