THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABILITY

THOSE OF US who are paying attention to climate change know that
the way that we live our lives needs to change. The way that we live
needs to change urgently, markedly and systemically; this includes
all that we do, every act that has impact on others, on resource con-
sumption, energy consumption and on collective decision making.
To speak of sustainability means to speak of a renegotiation of the
way that we live on the earth: a dramatic reduction of our resource
and energy consumption. It is about social change.

According to Ezio Manzini design for social innovation towards
sustainability, or DEsIs is “everything that expert design can do
to activate, sustain, and orient processes of social change toward
sustainability” [2]. Manzini’s work on DESIS has spanned more
than a decade, and has resulted in the establishment of a network
of DESIS research labs in design schools worldwide.

ORIGINS OF DESIS

From the beginning, Manzini's ideas were seen as visionary in val-
ues and design. He was able to articulate the relative importance of
various approaches to sustainable design. He affirmed that while it
is essential to design resource efficient products and services, the
needed reduction in ecological impacts would come from changes
in how people lived, worked, and connected with one another: this
is social innovation toward sustainability. At the time, this was a
new vision and domain for sustainable design.

The research that leveraged Manzini’s theories began with the
EMUDE (Emerging User Demands for sustainable solutions) proj-
ect in 2004. Working with a number of colleagues including Anna
Meroniand Francois Jégou, Manzini decided to research what cre-
ative people were already doing to live low impact lifestyles. With
support from the European Union, teams of design students from
eight schools in Europe were mobilized to gather case studies of
people who were shaping their lives resourcefully and creatively.
The case studies were analyzed, sorted and disseminated in pub-
lications that reached a wide audience of academics, students
and designers [1, 3]. This was followed by projects that collected
diverse case studies and interest from around the world. It is very
important that this work has been distilled from the initial case
studies and inspiration to principles and approaches for designing
in new ways: social innovation toward sustainability, an emerging
domain for design.

The ideals of social change toward sustainability were dissem-
inated by Manzini via his prolific international teaching and
speaking career. Design schools, as places for learning, exper-
imentation and creation of new models for design, house and

support much of the DEsIs research work. Participating design
schools, students, and faculty are important agents of change
and contributors to DESIS. DESIS holds annual assemblies in con-
junction with Cumulus, the largest association of Art and Design
schools around the world. This draws members together for deci-
sion—making and builds the knowledge network and community
of design for social innovation and sustainability.

The DEsIs lab network was formalized in 2009 by the eight orig-
inal member schools and by 2016 has grown to 48 member schools
around the world. The DESIS organization supports the capaci-
ties of member schools to operate as design research teams that
collaborate internationally to share knowledge through research
relationships, and by presenting at the annual DESIS assembly.
These labs do ongoing research, promote the development of
knowledge, and educate designers to meet the growing demand
for design for social innovation toward sustainability.

Emily Carr Design, with its strong focus on sustainability, design
research, participatory methods and contextually grounded
design, was an ideal candidate for a DESIS lab. We joined DESIS
in 2012 and are currently the only DEsIs lab in Canada. The
Emily Carr DEsIs lab hosts a number of initiatives including the
cloTHING(s) as Conversation project (See page 25 in this issue),
Vancouver Transition Town Collaborations, and Who is Social, an
inquiry into social engagement with other-than-humans.

KEY PRINCIPLES OF DESIS

The theories, approaches and methods of DEsIs are detailed exten-
sively in Manzini’s new book Design, when Everybody Designs. Key
principles to discuss here: Scale, Recombination of Existing Assets,
and Redundancies. These and other DESIs principles shift the way
that designers have traditionally been taught to approach our work.

SCALE

Social innovations work best when they are designed for the local
conditions of specific communities. They are characterized by
their human scale.

Ecologically, small scale solutions are often less resource
intensive. Large scale production of any type requires extensive
resources, often fossil-fuel based. In her system map Eilish McVey
indicates the multiple touchpoints that are potential resource
impacts for a single head of hydroponic lettuce grown outside
metro Vancouver. Her redesign proposes curbside neighbourhood
greenhouses called Gro-Mo with member card access modeled
after car share programs. This local scale greenhouse reduces

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SUSTAINABILITY & SOCIAL INNOVATION