Embedding Sustainable Values in the High-End Market through Premium Design

The sustainability challenge is one of the most pressing issues facing our world today, encompassing various environmental, social, and economic concerns. Addressing sustainability complexities necessitates a profound and radical transformation of our development model. This transformation involves not only production processes but also patterns of consumption and access to goods and services (United Nations, 2023). Design has emerged as a powerful tool to address these sustainability challenges (Walker, 2006; Bhamra & Lofthouse, 2007). Pioneering this integration of design and environment in 1985, Victor Papanek introduced profound environmental considerations into the design realm (Papanek, 1985). Building upon Papanek’s legacy, the evolution of design for sustainability unfolded gradually from the early 1990s to the contemporary era, marked by diverse approaches and frameworks across different scopes and scales of innovation. In 2016, Adams et al. revealed a transformative shift from a narrow technical and product-centric orientation to an emphasis on system-level changes, addressing sustainability as a challenge to be tackled at a socio-technical-ecological system level (Ceschin & Gaziuluoy, 2020). Confronted with an imperative challenge that demands immediate attention, the high-end market landscape is progressively under pressure and intensifying in its competitiveness. How to create new values in line with contemporary consumers and bring meaningful changes through design with a premium push to attain a long-term sustainable impact has emerged as a crucial subject for leading companies and organizations (Hemmings, 2019). The premium design encapsulates superior material quality, functional efficacy, and aesthetic allure into the fabric of products and services, thereby augmenting their perceived value and desirability within the high-end domain. It requires a delicate balance between shared value and banalization, ensuring quality preservation in the availability of products and services to a broader audience without diluting their fundamental essence (Ingaramo, 2022). This approach can mitigate irrational economic and environmental impacts through resource optimization while enhancing product quality and service efficiency. It resonates with consumers who value quality and ethical, environmentally conscious lifestyles and promotes the market’s transition towards sustainable practices. This paper employs a combined methodology, comprising a literature review and case studies, to elucidate the intricate interaction of the premium design approach across multiple design for sustainability levels. It aims to investigate the potential perspectives of such an approach in embedding sustainable values in the high-end market, ranging from product to service and social system spheres. The authors wish to offer valuable insights that can be used as a reference by fellow researchers engaged in exploring sustainability-focused design across relevant domains.