Design for Sustainability for All: Now and Everywhere! The Learning Network on Sustainability

One major issue attached to the transition towards a sustainable society is that of improving social equity and cohesion in low and middle-income contexts, while empowering locally-based enterprises and initiatives, for an environmentally sustainable re-globalisation process characteri sed by a democratisation of access to resources, goods and services. In relation to this, two promising and interwoven offer models coupling environmental with economic and social sustainability are the Sustainable Product-Service System (S.PSS) and the Distributed Economies (DE). The coupling of these two models is a new promising Research Hypothesis, being the scientific focus of the LeNSin (the international Learning Network of networks on Sustainability) funded by the EU Erasmus+ programme. LeNSin project, started in the fall of 2015 is the follow up of other two EU funded projects and is incorporated into the LeNS worldwide network of networks of design Universities aiming at the promotion of a new generation of designers (and design educators) capable to effectively contribute to the transition towards a sustainable society for all. In this paper, it is firstly introduced sustainable development and system discontinuity explaining the circumstances that developed the sustainability field to the point where it required a radical change. It’s followed by a brief history of the extension of the role and significance of design for sustainability, i.e. a discourse on the evolution of design for sustainability, firstly focused on product Life Cycle Design (eco-design), then on Eco-Efficient Product-Service Systems design, and finally on the design for social equity and cohesion. Then the Sustainable Product-Service Systems (S.PSS) is presented as a known win-win offer model for sustainability. The Distributed Economies (DE) are then introduced as a promising offer model for locally-based sustainability. This is followed by the description of a Research Hypothesis (I) (LeNSin, 2016): S.PSS applied to DE is a promising approach to diffuse sustainability in low/middle-income (all) contexts. Finally, a second Research Hypothesis (II) (LeNSin, 2016) is introduced envisioning a new design role to develop such S.PSS applied to DE model, i.e. System Design for Sustainability for All (SD4SA). The final chapter of the paper present the international LeNS network of networks of Higher Education Institutions (HESIs) in design, aiming at the diffusion of design for sustainability worldwide with a learning-by–sharing and open and copy left ethos.