Future design capabilities at the edge of a liveable planet

In the face of the transformation needs in societies due to environmental crisis, design capabilities require renewal. These have been iterated and examined together with design educators and sustainable design professionals through co-design and a variety of methods when developing two educational sustainable design programs aimed at professional designers. The resulting requirements for strategic sustainability capabilities in design include systems thinking, analysing and designing around leverage points for emergent systems change. Strategic foresight with scenario building generates visions for desirable futures, without forgetting the contextual and concrete experiments towards these futures. New aspects of human-driven design need to be adapted, including the regenerative and appreciative concern in human-nature relationships and design for sustainable behaviour change for sufficiency-based consumption. There should also be an emphasis on place-based, local, and contextual collaborations and solutions. Design education needs to embrace these capabilities for strong sustainable design.