Simona Rocchi
Sustainable Design Senior Consultant
Trends & Strategy Group
Philips Design
P.O.Box 218 - HWD3
5600 MD Eindhoven (NL)
Tel: +31 40 2759223
Fax: +31 40 2759161
simona.rocchi@philips.comz

Premise

Design can play a key role in the creation of a sustainable development. Design can integrate ecological requirements in the business creation process and go far beyond it. Acting as a bridge between people, technology and business, design can facilitate the systematic integration of economical, social and environmental parameters in the framework of new and more sustainable patterns of production, marketing, distribution and use.

Design therefore can become a powerful engine for sustainable innovation. It can help businesses in generating solutions able to stimulate new social behaviours (e.g. accessibility versus ownership, sharing versus individual use, up-gradability and reparability versus substitution) whilst still supporting economic societal needs.

Our approach: "system-thinking"

In Philips Design, we adopt a human focus, tracking the latest emerging social values and combining them with new technologies and market trends, to create solutions able to take us into a more sustainable future. Embracing a "system-thinking" approach, we move from eco-design, as a "product-oriented design process aimed to minimise the environmental impact of the product along its material life-cycleTM", to design-for-sustainability, as a "solution-oriented design process aimed to stimulate technological change and social innovation in the current system of production and consumption, in order to decrease the use of environmental resources and enhance's people quality of lifeTM".

Our visionary projects and research studies

From stand-alone products to integrated systems
Within the framework of our visionary projects we have explored out some scenarios able to benefit people, environment and business. Thanks to the diffusion of digital technology and ICT, we have broken down the traditional distinction between physical products and intangible services to envision internet-based product-service combinations, which pave the way for lightweight interfaces and increased portability.

In these projects, we have taken the issue of "dematerialization" into account following a roadmap that goes from miniaturisation of products (reducing product's weight and size) to integration of product-functions (replacing different products with one single device).

By miniaturisation of components and the use of digital services, we have figured out new internet-based solutions that attempt to economise on materials and facilitate up-grades practices. Going one step further, devices can eventually disappear, maximising material savings. Microchips, online connection and digital services make technology increasingly embedded and invisible, allowing us to integrate different product-functions into our furniture and even more, our clothes.

Towards a sustainable product-services mix
Within the Design Research & Development Programme 1999-2000, we started to push the frontiers of our design-based research beyond the environmental dimension of sustainability, to embrace the social dimension too.

We looked into innovative scenarios able to generate wealth, environmental and social benefits. In the framework of renting and leasing strategies (access vs. ownership), we envisioned internet-based solutions around the issues of personal well-being and Philips applications. These solutions aimed to facilitate home healthcare practices, daily virtual medical assistance and generate mutual assistance networks.

Next challenge
One of our assumptions is that, in the new global-local markets, the challenge will be to create solutions with the direct participation of end-users in geographic-based communities. In this perspective, we are currently carrying out new research studies promoted in partnership with industrial actors and universities to explore solutions that are both economically valuable, environmentally friendly and customised to specific local lifestyles and conditions. h

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Last updated: 13 November, 2008