Sustainable Design SIG

Agenda

Over the last years, the ecodesign knowledge area evolved from the consideration of environmental issues only, to a sustainability approach in which social, economic and environmental issues are simultaneously taken into account. In order to be able to reflect this evolution in the Design Society, we have decided to change the SIG name from "Ecodesign SIG" to the "Sustainable Design SIG".

We believe that the most important focus for the Sustainable Design SIG is to support the development of science-based knowledge to support industry to deal with the challenges for Sustainable Design implementation (e.g. strategy, companies’ buy-in, collaboration, knowledge, tools and management).

We have the following aims for the Sustainable Design SIG:

- Make it happen in industry
- Raise level of research results and professionalism
- Peer review of methods and tools
- Creation of real-world examples
- Share examples in research and in teaching
- Real evaluations of tools and methods (in companies)
- Exchange- get in contact - get informed - get involved - do it - improve- exchange
- Active dissemination of experiences and active attempts at increasing the industrial audience
- Make sustainable design alive, active and attractive for researchers and industrialists
- Provide inspiration
- Involve students
- Synergy through collaboration (multi-disciplinary)
- Apply SIG common knowledge to specific cases

Focus

Discussion of Sustainable Design methods, tools and related approaches, to ensure high-quality research that builds on previous results.

Linking together the scientific research results in the field of Sustainable Design and ecodesign from the SIG's active universities and research centres, and preparing them for implementation in industry.

Committee

- Daniela Pigosso, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark (chair)
- Cassandra Telenko, Georgia Tech, USA
- Yann Leroy, Ecole Centrale Paris, France
- Sophie Hallstedt, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden

Countries

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, The Netherlands, UK, USA (Last count: July 2016).

Mode of operation

Until now our mode of operation has been as follows:
- LinkedIn group (Ecodesign SIG)
- E-mail newsletter and discussions
- Workshops at ICED & DESIGN conferences
- Workshops at other non-DS conferences (NorLCA, CARE-Innovation)
- Joint EU applications
- Website

Free of charge - no financial obligations as yet

Type of events

Conferences, workshops, mailing list, webinars, Special Issues.

Type of publications

No fixed strategy as yet, but joint publications have arisen due to collaboration in the SIG and pubications are collected in the DESIGN and ICED conference workshops and sessions.

History

The Ecodesign SIG has existed as a framework since 2001 and has held a series of activities connected with the ICED and DESIGN conferences.

In February 2005 in Copenhagen the Ecodesign SIG constituted itself with a steering group. This is the new platform of the Ecodesign SIG, where we intend to follow up on the "haves and needs" from academia and industry in sustainable product development, through offering latest research and case studies.

In 2015, the SIG eco-design passed through a restructuration in the Steering Committee, which lead to slight changes to the SIG objectives and goals and a broadened topic to embrace Sustainable Design.