What makes Changing the Change an exciting event is that it explores generating the changes we need for the future.

The work of the community called The Designers Accord has been an inspiration to me in this regard.

Established by Valerie Casey from IDEO, the Accord involves over 100,000 designers, managers, consultants, engineers, researchers, and educators from more than 100 nations who actively commit themselves to bring about positive change for sustainability in their organizations. Our faculty at Swinburne University adopted the accord as an educational adopter, committing ourselves to five principles:

1. Publicly declare participation in the Designers Accord.

2. Initiate a dialogue about environmental impact and sustainable alternatives with every student and colleague in your educational program. Rework curricula and assignments to emphasize environmentally responsible design and work processes. Provide course content, lectures, and assignments that focus on strategic and material alternatives for sustainable design.

3. Undertake a program to educate your colleagues about sustainability and sustainable design, and plan the integration of these concepts into course curricula.

4. Measure the carbon/greenhouse gas footprint of your institution, and pledge to reduce your footprint annually.

5. Advance the understanding of environmental issues from a design perspective by contributing actively to the communal knowledge base for sustainable design.

Ezio mentioned Yrjo Sotamaa’s leadership for sustainability within Cumulus — another great example.

Many years ago, I studied anthropology with John Collier, Jr. John spent much of his life in two ethnic communities, the American Indian communities of New Mexico and Arizona where he grew up with his family, and the fishing communities of Nova Scotia where he worked as an anthropologist. Much of John work was oriented toward creating positive change. He used to say that the problem of social change is simple: you can’t change one aspect of an organization or society until you change everything, and you can never change everything — you’ve got to start with one thing.

This is true, yet not unsolvable. You start somewhere, finding appropriate points for vital interventions, creating consensus through action, and — and Valerie put it — making theory action.

In design research, theory has at least two meanings. One is a scientific theory of what things are and how things work. The other is an ethical or philosophical theory of desired states: a design outcome.

A design research agenda for sustainability requires both.

The lead-up to Changing the Change has stimulated an enormous amount of dialogue and generative energy around the world. Ezio, Jorge, Victor, and more have brought this dialogue to focus on a few days in Torino this July. The Torino conference on Changing the Change is a focal, and like a lense, it will gather and strengthen the energy of our global dialogue for the action that follows.

I’m eager to see what comes next, and I’m eager to participate in the world this dialogue will help to shape.

Ken Friedman