Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 162, 20 September 2017, Pages 1297-1307
Journal of Cleaner Production

Roles of design in sustainability transitions projects: A case study of Visions and Pathways 2040 project from Australia

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.122Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Transitions research poses creative as well as analytical challenges.

  • This research explored roles of design in transitions projects.

  • Design can play various roles in transitions projects.

  • These roles include technical, informational and synthesising roles.

  • Design practitioners will increasingly need new professional capacities.

Abstract

Sustainability transitions require structural and systemic changes. Transitions research poses creative as well as analytical challenges due to high complexity and uncertainty associated with these projects. In this article we present an initial and exploratory investigation of roles design plays in transition projects focusing on Visions and Pathways 2040 (VP2040) project as a case study. VP2040 aims to develop visions, scenarios and pathways for low-carbon resilient futures in Australian cities. The project adopts a design-led approach, linking research and engagement in design-led future visioning. Our findings indicate that the roles design can play in sustainability transitions projects is various covering very tangible, technical, skills-based roles, to very intangible roles, relating to how information is received, processed and synthesised. Our findings also imply that, increasingly more, design practitioners will need to bring in skills and knowledge that have not been part of conventional design education, and therefore, institutions providing design education need to start developing and implementing curriculums that will equip graduates with these new professional capacities.

Introduction

Various sustainability challenges including climate change and associated economic and environmental disturbances, with implications for ecosystem and human, and social order will increasingly challenge the society (Hughes and Steffen, 2013; Huntingford et al., 2013; Rockström et al., 2009; Semenza, 2014; Wright et al., 2013). In the past years, cities have become the focus of strategic action in regards to climate change and sustainability (Ryan, 2013) and there has been a surge of theoretical and empirical explorations covering a diversity of topics including models for governing urban sustainability transitions (Fenton, 2016, Khan, 2013), production and consumption in cities (Vergragt et al., 2016), institutional entrepreneurship, planning for climate change in cities (Wamsler et al., 2013) as well as real-life embedded experiments such as urban transitions labs (Nevens et al., 2013) and urban eco-acupuncture (Ryan, 2013).

Cities are complex systems consisting of social, physical and informational layers which dynamically interact with one another (Johnson, 2012). There are several reasons for this increased interest in cities in the context of sustainability and low-carbon transitions. The first is about the demographic shift to urban areas. Currently more than half the world’s population now reside in cities, with populations in cities projected to grow nearly to 70% in 2050 (UN-Habitat, 2011). This demographic shift brings with itself an increasing and concentrated impact associated with cities. Cities account for around 75% of global energy demand and 75% of greenhouse gas production, while occupying only around 2% of the world land area (Hajer and Dassen, 2015, Satterthwaite and Dodman, 2009). The second reason concerns the innovative potential of cities: cities can be instrumental in generating the innovation and creativity necessary for low-carbon transitions (Bettencourt and West, 2011; Leichenko, 2011). The third is about the increasing agency of cities in climate change action: while progress in reaching binding global political consensus for climate change action at the level of nation states has been very slow, individual cities and networks of cities are adopting reduction targets and actively investing in programs to reach them (Inayatullah, 2011, Rosenzweig et al., 2010). The fourth reason concerns the historical and current role cities play in social movements reclaiming democratic and environmental rights and thus in re-structuring long-embedded political institutions undermining environmental and social resilience (Arampatzi, 2016; Arampatzi and Nicholls, 2012, Harmanşah, 2014, Harvey, 2012, Leontidou, 2010, Walliser, 2013).

It would be a mistake to problematize urban sustainability and low-carbon transitions merely as a technological issue. Urban transitions are also a socio-cultural and politico-economic challenge, a process of transformation that requires fundamentally different systems, structures and practices to be conceived and implemented by social actors. These transformation processes are referred to as socio-technical transitions or system innovations for sustainability (Geels, 2005, Loorbach, 2010, van den Bergh et al., 2011). Ultimately, transitions and system innovations require significant and structural changes in the systems that support society. The embedded (inter)relationships of these systems suggest that system innovations and transitions involves a re-conceptualization of whole systems and a creative imagination of alternative and desirable futures.

In the context of urban sustainability and low-carbon transitions, these systemic transformation processes can be conceived as a design challenge of three interconnected dimensions: We refer to the first dimension as the creative dimension of the design challenge. This dimension is arguably the most difficult dimension as it requires imagining entirely new socio-technical systems which will support a vibrant, culturally satisfying and productive urban existence in the future. These new socio-technical systems need to be imagined complete with their institutions, organisational models including new business and governance models, technologies including associated products and services and new social practices including norms, values and behaviour. The second dimension involves selecting, designing and developing those system concepts that will support the resilience of communities even as the environment and climate changes. This dimension is the technical dimension of the design challenge. The third dimension requires attending to the political nature of transition processes by designing participatory processes for the purposes of deliberating and negotiating characteristics of those future systems as well as strategies for achieving them with relevant stakeholders. Therefore, this dimension is referred to as the political dimension of the design challenge.

The broad field of design for sustainability has evolved from a single-issue and artefact focus to a multiple-issue and system focus, pointing to the emergence of a new research and practice area referred to as design for system innovations and transitions (Ceschin and Gaziulusoy, 2016, Irwin, 2015, Ryan, 2008). This emerging area is underpinned by complex systems theories and sustainability science, and it integrates theories of social and technological system changes with design theory (Gaziulusoy and Brezet, 2015). Although some recent prescriptive or theoretical (re)positionings of design research and practice has helped us to develop some understanding of the role and potential of design in the context of system innovations and transitions, the documented case studies of system innovations and transitions specifically studying design is very limited. There is a body of growing research on urban transitions stemming from the disciplines such as geography, innovation studies, sociology, and science and technology policies. Nevertheless, this body of work focuses mostly on governance and planning of transitions (McCormick et al., 2013) as conception of transitions as a design challenge is relatively new, leaving ample space for theoretical and practical exploration of transitions through the lens of design discipline.

This paper aims to contribute into developing an understanding of the roles of design in system innovations and transitions focusing on the first year of a recent project on low-carbon transitions in Australian cities as a case study. In the following section we provide a conceptual framework of design and sustainability transitions. We briefly explain foundations of sustainability transitions using a multi-layered model adopted from system innovation and transition theories and link this with design theory. In the third section we present and discuss the case study findings which is followed by conclusions.

Section snippets

Conceptual framework: design and sustainability transitions

The conceptual framework we use to explain and analyse the roles of design in socio-technical transition processes is informed by the multi-level perspective (MLP) of system innovations. The first version of MLP was introduced by Rip and Kemp (1998). In 2000s it has been refined and developed with the empirical research of Geels (2005). MLP is based on historical studies of transitions in areas such as energy and transport, and is particularly powerful in understanding the complex interplay of

The project

Visions and Pathways 2040: Transitions to Low-carbon Resilient Futures in Australian Cities (VP2040) is a four-year multi-partnered research and engagement project. VP2040 is funded by an Australian Cooperative Research Centre, namely the Low-carbon Living one (CRC LCL). The project aims to develop visions of desirable, low-carbon and resilient futures, and strategies to achieve the scenarios that are derived from them. Victorian Eco-innovation Lab (VEIL) which is a research unit residing in

Conclusions

Design is generally understood by the general public through the outputs it creates; without a product or a process it remains somewhat invisible. Nevertheless, the roles design plays in knowledge generation within society in general and generation of knowledge and strategies in the context of system innovations and transitions are numerous. Both the design discourse and the ever expanding discourse on system innovations and transitions have understudied roles of design in inspiring, informing

Acknowledgements

Visions and Pathways 2040 project, the case study subject of this article, has been funded by the Co-operative Research Centre, Low-carbon Living stream. We would like to thank six anonymous reviewers who commented on earlier drafts of this article as well as several colleagues who were sounding boards throughout different phases of the conception, development and finalisation.

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