Dialogues on Design for Sustainability

This paper describes research currently being undertaken as part of an EPSRC funded project, Design Dialogues (2005-2008). It is argued that Western economies need to increase their resource productivity by ninety per cent over the next fifty years. This scale of change requires new horizons and limits for business and society. This presents a challenge for Design for Sustainability (DfS): to promote an effective and long term use of natural resources and a reconfiguration of concepts of growth and well-being.