Sustainability Stewardship
Helping business owners deliver more ethical and ecological stuff
Foundational semi-structured interviews were carried out over 13 weeks. The research was instrumental in defining the desired outcomes for small business owners and resulted in a tool for individualised sustainability goal setting.
My objective was to find out what design interventions Small to Medium-Sized (SME) business owners find valuable when endeavouring to create more sustainable products and services. When engaging this focussed group in the research, approaches were explored through the desirability, feasibility and viability lenses of the IDEO design thinking approach (IDEO 2011). Sustainability is defined in this project as the areas in which a product or service interacts with people (social capital), profit (economic capital) and the planet (ecological capital) as described by the people, profit, planet, product matrix, a cornerstone of Diehl’s Design for Sustainability (Diehl et al 2009). At the intersection of SME business leadership, design interventions and sustainability strategy, the project purpose is to facilitate the creation of viable sustainable improvements within SME businesses. |
• Business owner engagement
• Designed and delivered ideation workshops • Synthesised and captured ideas to take forward • Workshopped solution with key participants • Produced a HCD sustainability tool for business owners |