SCENARIOS OF SUSTAINABLE WELLBEING
Ezio Manzini
The lack of shared visions on what sustainable wellbeing could be like is
effecting negatively not only the most general debate on the political and
economic moves to be done at the scale of the whole society, but also the
technical discussion on how to promote sustainable solutions at the micro-scale
of the daily choices that have to be made by people, to decide their own “strategy
of life” or, for companies, to compete in the market.
Facing these issues, the following paper considers the potentiality of the
use of scenarios and, specifically, the design-orienting scenarios (DOS) in
the process of conception and development of sustainable solutions. In its
first part, it introduces the concept of scenario (Ideas of wellbeing and
scenario building: a social role for designers), discussing its specific meaning
when designers are concerned, the design-orienting scenarios, and the role
of this specific family of scenarios in the implementation of complex innovative
processes.
The second part of the paper (Visions of the present, and beyond: from unsustainable
to sustainable ideas of wellbeing), presents the traditional and emerging
ideas of wellbeing, their unsustainability, the rebound effect and a model
to interpret why the ongoing efforts to reduce the overall consumption are
not getting positive results. On this basis, a vision of possible sustainable
wellbeing is outlined.
The third part of the paper (Sustainable ways of living: scenarios of everyday
life in Europe and in China, research results), presents the results of two
series of design workshops on scenarios for “sustainable ways of living”,
that have been recently held in Europe and in China.
PART 1. ideas of wellbeing and scenario building: a social role for
designers
The transition towards sustainability will effect every dimension of the socio-technical
system in which we live (the physical one, as material and energy flows, the
economic and institutional one, as the relationships between social actors,
the ethical, aesthetic and cultural ones, as the value criteria and the quality
judgements) and it will touch all the scales of time and space at which it
works (from the short time and the micro-scale of the single product or service,
to long time and the macro-scale of the global socio-technical system). [1]
The result is that not only it is impossible to foresee how and at what pace
this transition will take place, but it is even very difficult simply “to
see the present”, i.e. to recognise how it works today and in which
way and where “the new” is appearing. [2]
This kind of blindness is not so strange: given to its complexity, the transition
towards sustainability will be very far from being a linear evolution. On
the contrary, it will be a complex social learning process: a sequence of
events and experiences thanks to which, progressively, amid mistakes and contradictions
¬ as always it happens in any learning process - human beings will learn
to live in a sustainable way.
visions of sustainable future
The concept of wellbeing is the most basic set of visions and ideas that legitimate
socially and ethically the same existence of the production and consumption
system. Implicitly or explicitly, this theme is one of the major issues under
discussion. But, as it clearly appears looking around us, this discussion
is very, very difficult. And, again, even though, in principle, nobody denies
the necessity of adopting sustainable life-styles, no one has any idea of
what they should be like. [3]
Clearly nobody, at the moment, has the answer to the question on how wellbeing
should be developed in order to generate (environmentally, socially and economically)
sustainable life-styles because it is still too soon. The answer will emerge
during the coming decades, and, as we have said, it will be the result of
a long, complex ¬ and probably contradictory ¬ social learning process.
But precisely because this has to be a long learning process, some hypotheses
and possibilities have to be discussed and verified right now.
In this framework, scenarios, and specifically the ones that have been defined
as design-orienting scenarios, may play the role of catalyst of actors and
triggers of new ideas and solutions. [4]
policy-orienting scenarios (POS) and design-orienting scenarios (DOS)
The most traditional scenarios has been developed in the framework of the
Future Studies [5] are finalised to evaluate the macro-trends evolution and
impact, and to discuss the related political and/or economical decisions to
be taken. These scenarios, that usually deal with the macro-scale of the socio-technical
systems and present a variety of possible futures, have been widely used in
relation to the environmental issues and to orient the consequent environmental
policies.
Here we will not consider this typology of scenarios, which we can refer to
with the expression Policy-Orienting Scenarios (POS). Vice versa, our interest
will be focused on a more recent family of scenarios that have been defined
"Design Orienting Scenario" (DOS) to stress that, rather than to
facilitate political decisions, they are conceived as tools to be used in
the design processes. [6]
In its most common interpretation the word scenario is considered synonymous
with vision: the vision of a hypothetical future. But the scenarios that we
are referring to here are more than this kind of visions.
In particular, the DOS have to propose a variety of comparable visions that
have to be clearly motivated and enriched with some visible and (potentially)
feasible proposals. And, finally, they have to be assessed. In other words:
they have to be visions based on considerations that the “scenario builder”
may share with, and eventually build with, the potential “scenario users”,
proposing them as an integral part of the scenario itself.
the design-orienting scenarios structure
It’s not the aim of this paper to present the design-orienting scenario
approach and methodology in depth. But to use them in our discussion, we have
to briefly introduce some of their specificity, for what concerns their structure
and their characteristics. Regarding their structure, design-0rienting scenarios
are articulated in three components:
Vision: it is the most specific component of the scenario. It answers to the
basic question: “how the world will be like if …?”. It gives
a image of a whole context of life and shows how it could appear if certain
behaviours would take place and certain proposals (in our case some products
and services) would be implemented.
Proposal: it is the component that, giving concrete form to a vision, transforms
thet vision in a real scenario. It answers to the question “what has
to be done to implement that vision?”. It presents some visible and
comprehensible set of products and services that have to be coherent with
the general vision and, at the same time, that have to be ¬ in principle-
feasible.
Motivation: it is the component that gives the meaning and legitimisation
to the scenario existence. It answers to the question: “why this scenario
is relevant …?”. It is the most rational and technical component
of the scenario building process and it is composed by general and specific
goals (and by their final assessments).
the design-orienting scenarios characteristics
The characteristics of design-orienting scenario are:
Plurality: they identify alternative solutions and/or contexts
in order to assess their economic, social and environmental implications.
Feasibility/acceptability: they are based on some existing
technological and/or socio-economical opportunities.
Micro-scale: they refer to the scale of the contexts of life, i.e. to a physical
and socio-cultural space in which actions (performed by individuals or groups
of individuals) take place.
Visual expression: they presented visual images of coherent
contexts and proposals, with the aim of giving synthetic and concrete suggestions
of how they could be like.
Participation: they facilitate the convergence of different
actors on a common vision that has to act as catalyst in the network building
and in the partnership generation processes
PART 2. visions of the present and beyond: from unsustainable to sustainable
ideas of wellbeing
To develop scenarios of sustainable wellbeing, the first step to take is to
enable people (individuals insides and outside the companies, communities
and profit and non-profit organisations) to escape from the powerful images
produced and socialised in the past and in more recent time, that are now
totally inadequate to face the new challenges. [7]
product-based wellbeing
At the beginning of the industrial era the combined development of science
and technology brought to human beings possibilities never seen before: the
possibility of materialising complex services in the form of products (a laundry
service which materialises in washing machines, the service of playing music
which becomes a radio or a record player) and the possibility of democratising
access to them, producing them in increasing quantities at decreasing prices.
This unprecedented possibility brought with it an extraordinary spread of
a particular form of wellbeing. A wellbeing that was recognised precisely
in the possibility of individually possessing, showing off and consuming the
products. And, moving towards more recent times, and more affluent societies,
the possibility of choosing between different options and devising, in this
way, a personalised set of products.
In the framework of this vision, which we can define as the vision of product-based
wellbeing, the emerging idea is that life choices tend to considered as choices
among marketable goods and that, as a consequence, freedom of choosing as
coincident with the freedom of buying (metaphorically, the contexts that best
express this vision are the big shopping malls: places where there is the
widest choice and, if we have the money to do so, the greatest opportunity
to buy whatever we prefer).
The problem of this vision of wellbeing is that (as in the last two or three
decades we have been forced to discover) it is intrinsically environmentally
and socially unsustainable. And this for several interrelated reasons that
in these years have been widely discussed.
rebound effect
Facing this discovery of the environmental problems related to the diffusion
of the product-based well being, the environment has come onto the agenda
of both politics and the economy, many products have been transformed and
the environmental efficiency of each has, in general, been greatly enhanced.
In other words, considering, one by one, the various artefacts introduced
in the overall socio-technical system, it might seems that the technical production
system has evolved and is evolving in the right direction, that it is progressively
becoming more environmentally friendly. Unfortunately this is not the case.
If we move from a consideration of the environmental quality of each single
product to a consideration of the system as a whole, we realise that the situation
has in no way improved, rather the overall consumption of environmental resources
continues to increase. In fact, in the framework of the product-based ideas
of wellbeing, and of the product-based economy behind it, these interconnected
phenomena tend to happen:
_Downsized, leaner products tend to become throwaway goods and, for this reason, to proliferate.
_Friendly interfaces make simpler to do previously difficult or tedious activities, and so these activities too tend to proliferate (for instance, it has never been so easy to print documents as it has been since computers came into existence, and consequently for every document produced we print innumerable versions)
_Good communication systems permit to connect people without moving them, but it has never been so necessary to move as it is now (telematic connection is fine but every so often it is necessary to meet each other face to face!).
The great, and in many ways tragic, discovery of this period is just this:
the boomerang or rebound effect - by which actions expected to have environmentally
positive effects, in fact bring insignificant, if not actually negative results.
And technological improvements, meant to improve the products and services
eco-efficiency, for reasons that are rooted in the complexity of the overall
socio-technical system, seems “naturally” to become new opportunities
for consumption, i.e. increases in the system unsustainability.
The same kind of phenomena, unfortunately, is happening today with the emerging
access-based wellbeing.
access-based well-being
Considering the dominant ideas of wellbeing, in the last decade, something
started to change, at least as far as mature industrial societies were concerned.
This change, that has to be related to the on-going shift towards an economy
based on services and knowledge, can be summarised in the slogans “from
the material product to the intangible” [8] , “from consumption
to experience” [9] and “from possession to access”. [10]
All this seems good: in principle, access to services and experiences which
satisfy intangible needs appears to be a promising concept, an idea on which
to built some form of sustainable lifestyle. Unfortunately, as we will see,
reality shows a completely different picture.
In the framework of this new economy the central position of the material
product in the definition of well-being becomes obsolete: well-being no longer
appears linked to the acquisition of a “basket” of material products,
but rather to the availability of access to a series of services, experiences
and intangible products. More specifically: in a society saturated with material
goods, to focus on the immaterial seems more interesting. And, at the same
time, when life-styles are characterised by speed and flexibility, the ownership
of material products appears too heavy and rigid a solution, something that
increases the inertia of the system (which, on the contrary, is intended to
be as light and flexible as possible). [11]
In fact, in coherence with this vision, which we may define as the vision
of access-based wellbeing, quality of life is related to the quantity and
quality of services and experiences which it is possible to have access to.
And, consequently, the idea of freedom tends to be coincident with that of
freedom of access (metaphorically, the contexts that best illustrate this
vision are theme parks: places where, at your pleasure, you can choose your
thrills among many, and where everything has been carefully thought out to
offer you an “exciting experience” ¬ if you have the money
to buy the tickets).
the rebound effect, in the “age of access”
The problem with this emerging vision of wellbeing is that, even though it
breaks the direct link between wellbeing and consumption of environmental
resources, practically, while developing in the present cultural and economical
context, it may becomes even more unsustainable than product-based one. [12]
And this for several interconnected reasons:
_The new “intangible needs” tend to be added, and not to substitute, the old “material ones”.
_The speed and flexibility of new life-styles imply the same speed and flexibility in access to services which, for this same reason, proliferate.
_Services and experiences, per se, may be immaterial, but their delivery may be highly material intensive.
In conclusion, the access-based idea of wellbeing, applied in the way in
which it is taking place now, brings insignificant, if not actually negative
results. The question that we cannot escape is: why does it happen? Why, whatever
we do, the final result turns out to be a further increase in the consumption
of our environment?
If the reasons for the environmental and social un-sustainability of the product-based
wellbeing have been very widely discussed far less discussed has been the
issue related to the sustainability or unsustainability of the access-based
wellbeing.
In the following paragraphs some hypotheses will be formulated. These hypotheses
will be the basic framework of the scenarios of sustainable wellbeing that
we want to build.
the crisis of common goods
Our first hypothesis of work is related to the existence of a strong relationship
between rebound effect and the crisis of the common goods, and in particular,
of the local common goods.
The expression local common goods, that is the pillar on which this first
hypothesis is built, stands for “goods” that belong to everybody
and nobody in particular. And that - until they remain “common”
- cannot be reduced to marketable products and cannot therefore be bought
or sold.
Examples of common goods range from basic physical resources, such as air
and water, to social resources like a neighbourhood community or the civic
sense of its citizens, up to more complex resources such as the landscape
or an urban public space or a “sense of security” in a town.
It is clear that these common goods constitute a fundamental part in the construction
of a human habitat, i.e. in the definition of the quality of the physical
and social contexts in which human beings live, and in which products themselves
take on meaning.
Nevertheless, in the models of wellbeing which have been dominant in industrial
societies up to now the central position held by individually acquirable goods
(whether products or, more recently, services) has caused, as a highly tangible
side effect, an underestimation of the role which common goods assume in the
actual definition of a state of wellbeing. The consequences have been the
complementary phenomena of:
_Desertification: the neglect and, consequently, the degeneration of the common goods, considering them as insignificant or considering their deterioration as inevitable (assuming it as a sort of penalty to pay to progress and to the quest for wellbeing).
_Marketisation: the transformation in market goods of some components of the traditional human habitat that previously had been common goods (i.e. often assuming that their privatisation would be the way to avoid their deterioration ¬ see the present world-wide debate on water management).
the disappearance of the contemplative time
The second hypothesis of work is related to the relationship between rebound
effect and the crisis of the contemplative time. The expression contemplative
time, that is the pillar on which this second hypothesis is built, stands
for a time that is used “to do nothing” and, nevertheless, is
not empty, nor meaningless.
Examples of contemplative time range, of course, from looking to a sunset
to making some spiritual exercises. But we may assume that there is a bit
of contemplative time also in doing something (walking, eating, talking with
people,…) at a slower pace.
Traditionally, the contemplative time has been an important part of the life
and it had been considered as a privilege (as a matter of fact, poor people
hadn’t had a lot of possibilities for contemplating). [13] Now things
are changed and the contemplative time is disappearing for both the wealthy
and the poor. This disappearance is caused by two complementary phenomena
concerning our use of time:
_Saturation: the tendency to saturate every moment with something to do, and, more and more frequently, to stuff it with several things to do at the same time.
_Acceleration: the tendency to do everything at a faster pace to have the possibility (or the illusion) to do more.
proliferation of remedial goods
If we consider the past century, we can empirically observe how the spread
of goods and services for private use and consumption has run parallel to
the common goods deterioration and to the disappearance of the contemplative
time.
Facing this observation, our third hypothesis of work may be articulated in
this way:
_There is a relationship between the diffusion of market goods (if ever more sophisticated and efficient) and the crisis in common goods and contemplative time, and in all that they bring as their specific, cost free, contribution to the definition of “a state of wellbeing”.
_There is a second relationship between the crisis in common goods and contemplative time, and the proliferation of new remedial goods, i.e. products and services that try to make acceptable a context of life that, per se, is heavily deteriorated.
_The growth in consumption of remedial goods, in turn, brings to more consumption, and to a further crisis of both common goods and contemplative time. And so on in a negative auto-reinforcing cycle.
The concept of remedial goods is obviously the central issue in this hypothesis.
The common character of the remedial goods is that their use or consumption
is not improving the quality of life or opening new possibilities for the
user (as it could be the case for a new washing machine for a person that,
until then, had washed by hand). What they do is simply to (try to) restore
a degree of acceptability to a context of life that has been degraded.
The meaning of this definition immediately appears if we consider the crisis
of some basic common goods: we buy “bottled distilled water” because
natural, local water is polluted, we move to faraway “tourist paradises”,
because the beauty nearby has been destroyed, we buy electronic and telematic
domestic security systems, because neighbours no longer discretely, and at
no cost, keep an eye on the house, and so on.
Even if it may be less evident, the same concept of remedial goods may be
used in dealing with the disappearance of the contemplative time: we buy and
we consume a growing number of products and services “to stuff the time”,
to kill the sense of void left by our incapability to enjoy contemplative
time or, simply, to do something at a slower pace. In this case, i.e. considering
the relation between goods and the disappearance of contemplative time, it
is not easy to establish with a sharp precision, which goods are the remedial
ones and which are not. But we could easily say that a lot of them, from TV,
to mobile phones, to junk food, have inside a strong remedial component.
sustainability and contexts of life
In conclusion of this part, we can assume that un-sustainability, at the local
scale, is a process of deterioration of the contexts of life, caused by the
crisis of the common goods and the disappearance of the contemplative time.
The expression context of life, here, denotes a physical and social environment
(the habitat of person) and a set of possibilities (the possibilities, for
this same person, to make his choices). For what regards its quality, it is
given by the way in which different systems (natural and artificial, physical
and socio-cultural, market goods and common goods) match together. [14]
As a matter of fact, in the present socio-economic system, we are witnessing
the double process of crisis of the common goods and disappearance of contemplative
time and of the saturation of the time and space with remedial and “entertaining”
goods and services.
This double phenomenon is particularly dangerous because, as we have seen,
the different drivers reinforce each other in a negative circular process:
more consumption, more context degradation, more consumption (of remedial
goods).
If these hypotheses are correct, it comes that every idea of wellbeing, to
be sustainable (or at least, to have some probability to be sustainable) has
to consider the overall qualities of the contexts of life. More precisely:
it has to be based on the access to a variety of products and services, but
also, or even more, on the quality and quantity of the available common goods
and contemplative time.
context-based wellbeing and regenerative solutions
In this conceptual framework, we can start outlining our scenarios of sustainable
wellbeing indicating their motivations, i.e. their goals and their criteria.
Goal: we have to conceive scenarios of wellbeing in which
the overall quality of the context of life has to be considered, in which
the physical and social common goods are regenerated and where contemplative
time has its place.
Criteria: we have to conceive scenarios, and the proposals
that give them a concrete form, that have to be consistent with two major
criteria:
Low material-energy intensity: this is the most traditional
set of criteria for sustainability, and it remains the fundamental one. [15]
Whatever solution could be proposed, it has to be highly eco-efficient (keeping
count of the overall life-cycle of the related artefacts).
High regenerative potential: it is the set of criteria for
sustainability that comes from our previous considerations and hypotheses
of work and integrating the different but converging proposals of some innovative
thinkers on the concept of regenerative economy. [16] Whatever solution could
be proposed, it has to act as positive agent in the regeneration of the contexts
qualities.
On these bases, we can start to imagine the most general outline of the scenarios
of sustainable wellbeing that we would like to build:
A sustainable wellbeing has to be related to the qualities of the contexts
of life and has to be based on solutions that have to be at the same time
lean and regenerative (i.e. with low material-energy intensity and with high
regenerative potential)
PART 3. sustainable ways of living: scenarios of everyday life in
Europe and in China, research results
In this final part the paper presents two examples of scenario building. In
particular, it refers to two groups of workshops, that have been held in Europe
and in China, to generate scenarios of sustainable ways of living.
The European workshops were organised in the framework of the research SusHouse.Strategies
towards the Sustainable Household. [17] They have been held in four countries
(Italy, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Hungary) and were specifically
oriented to the development of household scenarios [18] .
The Chinese workshops have been organised in the framework of the research
“Hong Kong ¬ Mainland China Network on Design for Sustainability.
[19] They were held in four different universities in China (Changsha, Guangzhou,
Beijing and HK) and were specifically oriented to the development of scenarios
on residential services. [20]
These two experiences, which may not be discussed in depth in this paper,
present some strong similarities both on the methodological side and on the
output side. In both the European and the Chinese cases the workshop methodology
has been very near to the one proposed in the paragraphs on design-orienting
scenarios (DOS) and may be summarised in the following steps:
Motivation: the general and specific goals are given and
the design workshop brief is presented. In our case they have been: “sustainable
households functions”, in the European workshops, and “new residential
services for sustainable ways of living”, in the Chinese ones.
General vision: the framework of the vision and the basic
criteria of sustainability are given. In our case they have been: “low
material-energy intensity” and “high regenerative potential”,
with a particular emphasis of enhancing the local, social and cultural resources,
in the Chinese workshops.
Proposals: an exercise of creative concept generation brings
to a variety of wild concepts. These concepts are selected and clustered.
The result is a set of promising proposals that are developed and visualised.
Emerging scenarios: the promising proposal are analysed,
discussed and clustered on the basis of their most relevant characters. These
new clusters of proposals permits to outline a set of specific visions that
are, at the same time, coherent with the general one and with the cluster
of promising proposals, i.e., given our definition of scenarios, they are
an early form of scenario, the emerging scenarios.
Assessment: the emerging scenarios are discussed and assessed.
In our cases, the European workshops outputs have been assessed utilising
a set of simplified methodologies that have been originally developed inside
the SusHouse research itself, [21] while the Chinese workshops ¬ at the
moment ¬ have been only qualitatively assessed (confronting them with
the initial motivations and the general criteria of sustainability).
Promising scenario: the assessment of the emerging scenarios
permits to select and to consolidate a limited set of promising scenarios.
We define these scenarios as “promising” (and not simply “sustainable”)
because, in their development, it is impossible to assess them in a complete
way, i.e. keeping in count of all the criteria for sustainability. Nevertheless,
in a dynamic vision of the learning process that these scenarios will facilitate,
they appear, for reasons that have to be motivated case by case, promising
and capable to trigger new ideas and new behaviour.
These promising scenarios, that are the result of our scenario building exercise,
are discussed and described focusing on their most characterising aspects.
visions and proposals: three major scenarios
The discussion and comparison of these two groups of design workshops are
now in progress. Nevertheless, some very early consideration may be presented.
In both the European and Chinese workshops results, some common characterising
aspects has emerged. In particular:
_The attitudes towards “care” (the care of what has to be done
to get a result in a sustainable way) and toward the “user empowerment”
(the way in which technology helps users in taking care of the process).
_The attitudes towards the “social relationships” (the kind of
relationships that has to exist to get that result) and towards the “community
empowering potential” of the implied technological and organisational
systems (the way in which these systems facilitate the development of collective
actions).
Assuming these two characters as “organising concepts”, the output
of the two groups of design workshops have generated three major categories
promising scenarios. [22]
DIY+ Enabling-individual solutions. In this scenario people
individually take an active part in the solution employing enabling tools,
i.e. technological systems that permit them to use at best their personal
resources (and to get the result in an environmentally and socially positive
way).
In this scenario, the intelligence of the system is given by its capability
to integrate and enhance the intelligence of each single user.
Image of reference: a do-it-yourself world, in which individual people ¬
empowered by technological devices - are actively involved in finding out
their solutions and in regenerating their contexts of life.
THANK YOU! Relieving-collective solutions. In this scenario
people have access to a variety of eco-efficient relieving services, i.e.
services that deliver solutions with the least user’s effort and with
the best environmental performances (thanks to their optimised dimension).
In this scenario, the intelligence of the system is mainly embedded in the
technological and organisational system that delivers the solution.
Image of reference: a green-hotel world, in which individual people adopt
some eco-efficient and socially responsible services to be relieved of some
daily duties.
ME & US. Enabling-collective solutions. In this scenario
people take an active part in the solution having access to a socialised,
and socialising, enabling system, i.e. participating to social activities
that permit to use at the best their individual and collective resources (and
to get their results in an environmentally and socially positive way).
In this scenario, the intelligence of the system is embedded both in the technological
and organisational systems and in the intelligence of the users (considered
as individuals and as social groups).
Image of reference: a co-housing world, in which individual life is blended
with some forms of social organisations that permits, at the same time, to
socialise and to share some resource-consuming systems and to positively operate
for the regeneration of the social contexts of life.
global and local visions
The three outlined scenarios propose three global visions: ideas of wellbeing
that have emerged in both the Chinese and European workshops and that may
be defined as “promising” because, in different way, they express
a positive tension: the search for ways of living based on solutions that
may be, at the same time, low-resources intensive and with a good degree of
regenerative potential. These visions, as we have said, are “global”.
But, looking more carefully inside the two groups of workshops, something
else, some other images, emerge: visions, or better components of visions,
that appear as the surfacing of some deeper cultural layers.
It is not easy to outline this local specificity (this part of our research
is still in progress). Nevertheless, if we consider many of the expressions
that during the workshops, both in Europe and in China, have been implied
(as for instance: community vs. individuality and local roots vs global links),
we may observe interesting differences in their use. These differences of
meaning are (obviously) not surprising, given the distance between the European
and the Chinese traditions. The difficulty is to recognise them and to give
them a role in the making of the future proposals. And here we have the real
challenge for the scenario building: to put in light these differences, to
make them become the fertile background for the development of original, localised,
sustainable solutions. Sustainable solutions in which the necessity to answer
to the new emerging global demands is blended with the capacity to recognise
the local ones, even when they appear in brand new forms.
postscript: The emerging global visions
The Chinese design workshops outputs are, at the same time, very similar (the
global visions) and very different (the local dimension).
Considering them as a whole, what appear are scenarios of ways of living in
which the search for sustainability becomes the opportunity of proposing a
new equilibrium between contradictory demands:
1. The demand for individuality and flexibility (i.e. the possibility for everyone to make individually his/her choices and to define his/her “strategy of life”) on one side, and, on the other side, the demand for new sense of community and belonging (i.e. the possibility to escape loneliness, to search for protection and to build an identity, thanks to some new forms of community).
2. The demand for global links (i.e. to share with everybody in the world the experiences of an individual, flexible, mobile life) and the demand for local roots (i.e. to belong to a local community because it can be useful or simply because what emerges is a basic need of socialisation).
3. The demand for artificialness (i.e. to maintain and develop ways of living that take place in spaces and times that are very far from any forms of naturalness) and the demand for naturalness (i.e. to be in contact with something that is perceived as “natural”).
4. The demand of being served (i.e. to have access to new forms of full services, and, in this way, to get rid of any commitment and care) and the demand of being empowered (i.e. to have access to enabling platforms, and, in this way, to have the possibility to get some results by him or herself ¬ results that, in any case, due to the lack of time, tools and knowledge, to be got, require some forms of help).
The unstable combination of these polarity, in a cultural framework deeply
penetrated by the interconnected ideas of “limit” (of the environment,
but also of technology and politics) and of “complexity” (of the
society, but also of the everyday-life contexts) may be assumed as an expression
of the spirit of the age: an attitude that is globally emerging and that,
whatever scenario we may built and whatever solutions we may develop, has
to be carefully kept in account.
This spirit of the age, obviously, is not appearing in every region of the
planet with the same intensity and diffusion. But, nevertheless, it appears
world-wide wherever the combined processes of urbanisation, marketisation
and globalisation arrive and consolidate themselves.
In this statement, the concept of ‘consolidation’, in relation
to the processes of urbanisation, marketisation and globalisation, is particularly
important.
The spirit of the age that we refer to here, is not emerging in different
parts of the world with the first phase of the process, i.e. with the arrival
of the first wave of Mc Donald’s, Coke, Nike and MTV. For the appearing
of this phenomenon, a period of “digestion” of these new goods,
and of the new ideas that they bring with them, is needed. But, in our observation,
at least for the young people, this period may be very short. In few years
the idea of individuality and flexibility consolidate and, at the same time,
the one of community and belonging (re)appears.
Ezio Manzini is Professor of Industrial
Design at the Milan Polytechnic where he is Director of CIRIS (an Interdepartmental
Centre of Research on Innovation for Sustainability)
________________________________________
[1] R.A.P.M. Weterings J.B.& Opschoor, The Environmental
Capacity as a Challenge to Technology Development Rijswijk: RMNO, 1992; P.
Weaver, L. Jansen, G. Van Grootveld, E. Van Spiegel & P. Vergragt, Sustainable
Technology Development, London: Greenleaf Publishing Ltd
[2] E. Manzini, Strategic Design for Sustainability: Towards a New Mix of
Products and Services, Ecodesign ‘99, Tokyo, Japan, February 1999.
[3] E. Manzini, ‘Designing Sustainability. Leapfrog:
anticipations of a possible future’ in Domus N° 789, January 1997
and E. Manzini, ‘Leapfrog strategies’ in E. Van Hinte (ed.), Eternally
Yours, Rotterdam: OIO Publishers, 1997.
[4] E. Manzini, E & F. Jégou, The construction of Design-Orienting
Scenarios, Final Report, SusHouse Project, Faculty of Technology, Policy and
Management, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, 2000.
[5] B.E. Masini, Why Futures Studies, London: Grey Seal,
London, 1993.
[6] Manzini & Jègou, op. Cit.
[7] E. Manzini, ‘Design Systems. Scenario building
and solution providing in the network society’ paper presented to the
ICSID 2001 Conference, Seoul, October 2001 (to be published) and E. Manzini,
‘Ideas of wellbeing: Beyond the rebound effect’ paper presented
to Sustainable Services & Systems: Transition towards Sustainability,
Amsterdam, October 2001 (paper to be published).
[8] IPTS Futures Project, Demographic and Social Panel Report, N° Series
02 Seville: IPTS, 1999.
[9] J.B. Pine & J.B. Gimore, The Experience Economy:
Work is Theatre and Every Business a Stage, Boston, Massachussetts: Harvard
Business School Press, 1999.
[10] J. Rifkin, The Age of Access, New York: Putnam, 2000.
[11] Ibid.
[12] IPTS, Futures Project, Information and Communication Technology and the
Information Society Pane, Report, N° Series 03, Seville: IPTS, 1999; Manzini,
op.cit.
[13] C. Offe & R.G. Heinze, Economia senza mercato,
Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1997.
[14] E. Manzini, ‘Glossary for Solution Oriented Partnerships, the HiCS
Project’, working paper, Milano, 2001 (to be published)
[15] F. Schmidt-Bleek, ‘MIPS Re-visited’
Fresenius Environmental Bulletin, vol. 2, no. 8, Birkhauser Werlag, Basel,
August 1993; C. Fussler & P. James, Driving Eco Innovation: A Breakthrough
Discipline for Innovation and Sustainability, London: Pitman Publishing, 1996;
H. Brezet, H. & C. van Hemel, Ecodesign: A promising approach to sustainable
production and consumption Paris: UNEP, Paris. CEC Status Report: Towards
a Sustainable Information Society, DG XIII, 1998.
[16] P. Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce, London: Phoenix, 1994; G. Pauli Breakthroughs:
What Business Can Offer Society, 1997 (trad.it. Svolte eopcali, Milano: Baldini
& Castoldi, 1997; W. Stahel, ‘From Products to Services or Selling
Performance instead of Goods,’Ecodesign ’99: 1st International
Symposium on Environmentally Conscious Design & Inverse Manufacture, IEEE
Computer Society, Japan, 1999.
[17] P. Vergragt & K. Green ‘The SusHouse
Methodology. Design Orienting Scenarios for Sustainable Solutions’ The
Journal of Design Researc,h 2001; Manzini & Jegou, 2000.
[18] SusHouse Strategies towards the Sustainable Household, research funded
by the European Union’s Environment and Climate Research programme Theme
4: On Human Dimensions of Environmental Change (ENV4-CT97-0446). The research
has been co-ordinated by the Delft University of Technology and has been concluded
in the year 2000.
[19] E. Manzini & B.D. Leong, ‘Strategic Design
and design for Sustainability. A general overview and some consideration ion
the Chinese context’ paper presented to the Tsinghua 2001 China International
Design Forum, Beijing, June 2001 (paper to be published).
[20] Hong Kong ¬ Mainland China Network on Design for Sustainability,
research funded by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The research, concluded
in October 2001, has been developed in the framework of a joint-programme
with CIRIS-Politecnico di Milano ¬ Italy, and with the Hunan University
in Changsha ¬ China. One of the research output has been the promotion
of a ‘Chinese Network on Design for Sustainability’: a network
of design schools finalised to the diffusion of design for sustainability
in China.
[21] W. Young, Economic Analysis of Scenarios, Final
Report, SusHouse Project, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft
University of Technology, Netherlands, 2001; R. Bras-Klapwijk, Environmental
Assessment of Scenarios, Final Report, SusHouse Project, Faculty of Technology,
Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, 2000.
[22] The inertial scenario is: “NO CARE”: relieving-individual
solutions. This is the inertial scenario because it is the one that would
take place if nothing happen. This scenario is NOT a promising scenario because
it doesn’t correspond to the general motivations and the criteria of
sustainability (it is completely based on the hope of a “miracle”
technology that should be able, per se, to solve every problem.
.