For decades now, designers have been taught to consider human needs in their work — only human needs. But design that is good only for people, without looking at the well-being of our planet as a whole, has gotten us into trouble.
As mentioned casually in another context before, I admire the work of Space10 a lot. The Swedish research and design lab is funded by IKEA on its mission to “create a better everyday life for people and the planet”.
There are a bunch of great projects –including two wonderful books about ‘Future Food‘ and ‘Urban Futures‘– and an online journal full of interesting essays to discover, but for any creative, I recommend starting with this plea to move beyond human-centered design towards a “people-planet approach” published last year.