| Author: | Evans, Susan |
| Title: | A design approach for transformation towards sustainability in the context of a circular economy : a systemic design action frame |
| Advisors: | Gutierrez, Laurent (SD) Liu, Xihui Sylvia (SD) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Subject: | Sustainable development Economic development -- Environmental aspects Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | School of Design |
| Pages: | xix, 325 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Against a backdrop of climatic change that threatens humanities survival, design seeks new approaches, tools and frames to tackle changing societal and natural environment conditions. This thesis aims at advancing a systemic design approach to facilitate transformation with sustainability outcomes in the context of a circular economy (CE) for the well-being of people, society and the natural environment. There are two key issues challenging a systemic design approach for sustainability in the context of CE that limits design’s ability to co-create novel pathways that may attain sustainability. First, most CE frames for sustainability lack a social dimension. The focus of CE remains, in the major, narrowly applied to technical changes that aim at improving natural environment conditions with economic benefits. Few frames have specifically integrated the contextual social aspects in systemic CE transformations, even though there is rising acknowledgement that a social dimension is needed. Second, there has been increasing evidence to suggest that transformations towards sustainability require balance across social, economic and natural environment, which may benefit from an integrated approach that considers the two concepts of CE and sustainable development (SD). It is expected that a consolidated approach may address and resolve CE limitations and propel balanced transformation as argued to be necessary to attain sustainability. This opens a critical gap between the two concepts of SD and CE for systemic design. In following to address this critical gap and fill it from a design perspective, a broad research question was posited to guide the research study: “How might emerging systemic design approaches for transformation towards sustainability be improved in the context of a circular economy?” Four research objectives were formulated: 1) Attempt to integrate the two concepts of CE and SD to advance and strengthen existing frames and build a new theory to catalyse circular economy transformation with sustainability outcomes; 2) Seek to build upon the novel theory, to construct design tools for systemic transformation, to facilitate and inspire innovative enquiry, creative action and lead to imaginative solutions that may foster sustainable circular society, business and economy; 3) To confirm the conceptual frame as a practical design tool to improve future CE transformation with sustainability outcomes; 4) To make practical proposals, to improve future CE transformation for more sustainable agriculture. To address the research question and meet the objectives of this study, this research conducts three main studies A, B and C, and follows a six-stepwise research structure. First, a comprehensive systematic literature review followed by Study A, applied methods to build an integrated SD and CE theory, to advance sustainability and circularity; in following Study B, Steps 3 and 4 built on the novel theory (Study A), drew from the literature review, further characterised CE with category allocation, to construct and propose for a design action frame for systemic design (hereafter referred to as systemic design action frame); Study C conducted a real-world CE cover cropping transformation on the agriculture ecosystem to explore the contribution the frame can make in a real world example, Steps 5 and 6 applied methods for a systems process and conducted an embedded mixed methods approach with combined qualitative and quantitative methods over a 13-month period, applied sense-making strategies and systems event–behaviour–structure sequence analysis, further improved the design action frame (Study B) through iteration, and proposed practical suggestions to improve future systemic CE transformation for more sustainable agriculture. This research contributes with the sustainable circular transformation (SCT) theory and design action frame (hereafter referred to as SCT frame), as realised with two design tools: sustainable circular design map (SCDM) and canvas (SCDC) to strengthen and advance strategic guidance for a systemic design approach for sustainability and circularity. This research formulates a foundational step for establishing an approach to guide at a strategic level design and innovation for organisational (private and public) transformation for circularity and sustainability. This approach is directly applicable for organisations to address the issues of environmental degradation by implementing a CE intervention in which organisations strive for sustainability. This proposal attempts for compatibility with a whole systems perspective and application of a systemic design process. The approach aligns with emerging design ideologies, frames and processes which present opportunity to attain sustainability with future visions of thriving society and flourishing humanity and to achieve this by improving the wellbeing of people and society as interwoven with improving the conditions of the natural environment. In this respect the SCT proposal of this study is suggested as a complementary approach in conditions where design seeks an approach for organisational transformation with design proposals for circularity and sustainability. The SCT approach is intended to be more broadly applicable to social and environmental scientists, policymakers and for sustainable business modelling. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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