Design Thinking – innovative ideas for sustainability

When you talk to companies and initiatives that want to advance sustainability within their own organization, you often hear: "We don't know where and how to start." The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are challenging to grasp. Initial ideas seem to get stuck in the day-to-day business. Young professionals despair when they see new approaches to sustainability in companies dissolve like a fog. Task forces that develop business cases around a new sustainable product or service run out of steam halfway through. "I am taking part in the innovation circle workshops at the HPI d-school as part of this project to learn how Design Thinking can help me implement ideas and innovations more effectively," said one workshop participant. She had more than fifteen years of experience in the industry.

Innovations in the field of sustainability are complex. The effects are manifold, the goals often unspecific and the future scope unclear. In this complex and ever-changing world, who could anticipate people's needs in ten, twelve or fifteen years? The Design Thinking method, for example, offers a great toolbox for bringing people together in the flow and thus freely generating ideas. Design Thinking helps to integrate people's living conditions into software developers' mindsets. It enables rapid and iterative loops to prototypes that can be tested from the user's perspective. This toolbox suits most innovation processes, especially those that aim for immediate implementation. However, an additional toolset is required when imagining future living and working scenarios or dealing with a worldwide network of partners tackling open innovation processes. That's what our new Design Thinking Studios at the HPI d-school are for.

"Give material an identity because material without identity is waste." This paradigm, introduced by two participants of the Innovation Circle workshop in February 2024 on sustainability in the construction and building sector, could save tons of CO2 in the future. Provided that they succeed in developing sustainable products and services. Provided, secondly, that they succeed in influencing the future behavior of builders and owners to plan a building sustainably. Thirdly, if they succeed in bringing together producers of building materials and providing their data.
In our Design Thinking Studios at Academic Programs, we invite students, young professionals, and partner organizations with specific challenges in the field of sustainability to experiment with us at the d-school for a better and sustainable future. Proven Design Thinking tools are combined with new methods in an experimental learning setting. 

Design Thinking Studios for Sustainability and Open Innovation in Education will start twice a year in April and October from 2024.

Would you like to become a project partner and submit a practical project for the participants to work on? Please get in touch with us.

Bring your ideas. Shape the future together with us.

We are on a journey towards new approaches for more sustainability and want to share the questions and hurdles we encounter and insights with the public. We assume our readers face similar problems and challenges when applying Design Thinking. We bring our expertise in a human- and life-centered perspective to solving problems and are open to experimenting with new approaches. We want to share these experiences with others. Enjoy reading!