The Extraordinary Meaning of Social Sustainability

"SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY. This is not just about going green. This is about designing things that have a meaning so that we can be connected to them. We are so disconnected to what we buy. We do not care who makes it, where it comes from, or where it goes (just think about what you are wearing now).

If we did we might actually buy less. Our world economies need to stop using consumption to measure GDP. We are not measuring the harm, i.e. that it takes 10 calories of energy to make 1 calorie of food. And to be honest, we have nowhere to put all this stuff anymore.

As designers, we will be asked to understand the human story, not a consumer story. We need to move beyond product innovation and seek social innovation. Most of us still design to sell and not to solve. The future will require designing customized (not personalized) solutions that work for society as well as the individual. So, this is not just about how making too much stuff is environmentally unfriendly, it’s more about the one-to-one product transaction being an obsolete concept."

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