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Multipolar and open network of networks for curricula development on Design for Sustainability, focused on Sustainable Product-Service Systems (S.PSS) applied to Distributed Economies (DE), funded by the European Union Erasums+ program (multiregional with 36 universities as partners and associate partners from Mexico, Brasil, South Africa, India, China and in Europe UK, Finland, The Netherlands, and Italy).

Multi-polar and open network for curricula and lifelong learning capacity development on System Design for Sustainable Energy for All (SD4SEA) focused on Sustainable Product-Service System applied to Distributed Renewable Energies (DRE), funded by the European Union Edulink program (bi-regional with Africa).

The Sustainability Maker project, promotes open innovation, crowd-sourcing, crowd-voting, crowd-funding platforms, and an online marketplace for Sustainable Solutions (www.sustainabilitymaker.org – www.innonatives.com). The platform combines a website and mobile application, to connect people who have identified sustainability-related problems with those who like to help to develop creative problem-solving solutions and support their implementation.

The SuM project has published on the platform several Design Challenges related to climate change, energy, resource efficiency, water, food, and agriculture/land use, urban environment, waste, and recycling; and encourages the innovation community of the Sustainability Maker platform to develop solutions to solve these problems. The ideas/concepts/solutions submitted are voted by the crowd (crowd-voting) and sustainability experts. The best solution(s) can be implemented either by the external actors who formulated the challenge or by other members of the platform and additional stakeholders (e.g. crowd-funding).

In this European level culture project, contemporary, sustainable and accessible design meets different European audiences of different age groups. The project brings forth issues of creativity, social design, and sustainability, and promotes intergenerational dialogue in three European countries: Finland, France, and Italy. The project explores different forms of sustainable design and how users, consumers, and audiences of different ages perceive them. One of the main results of the project is traveling exhibitions named TANGO, aiming at being a lab and a window to diffuse sustainable innovations.

The Learning Network on Sustainability – LeNS is a 3 years project, involving 7 design schools in Europe and Asia, to develop an Asian-European multi-polar network for curricula development on Design for Sustainability focused on Product-Service System and to contribute to curriculum development, in a reciprocal understanding of cultures, by promoting a new generation of designers (and design educators) capable to effectively contribute to a transition towards a sustainable society.

LeNS promotes a new shared and articulated disciplinary ground on Design for Sustainability focused on Product-Service System, through a series of exchange activities and pilot courses at the partner institutions. LeNS has produced an open learning e-package, a modular package of teaching materials (texts, slide shows, audio, video, etc.) and tools for designers that design educators worldwide are able to download (free of charge), modify/remix and reuse (copyleft).

LeNS also promotes diffusion activities targeting the design community worldwide. As a project spin-off, the following affiliated HEIs network was established: LeNS Africa, LeNS South America, LeNS Central America, LeNS Oceania, LeNS German Speaking Languages, LeNS China, and LeNS India.

Sustainable consumption and production (SCP) is key policy priority world-wide. In our view, sustainable consumption and production structures can only be realized if experts that understand business development, (sustainable) solution design, consumer behavior and effectiveness of (policy) instruments work together in shaping them. Furthermore, this should be linked with the experiences of actors (industry, consumer groups, ecolabelling organizations) in real-life consumption areas.

Since in the EU a network with these characteristics is absent, this project sets up a Co-ordination action on SCP, emphasizing “user awareness” for sustainable consumption, involving key expertise covering all relevant steps of the value chain in the priority consumption domain s Mobility, Agro-Food, and Energy/electronics. These domains contribute to over 70% of the life cycle impacts of household consumption, are a priority in the EU's Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP), and give good examples of user awareness schemes (e.g. labeling).

The CA is organized around a series of Workshops and Conferences. The first workshop will provide a general exchange of views. The second phase of the project gives sustainable consumption cases in the domains center stage. These are used as vehicles for a positive confrontation of insights from different science fields, leading to true best practice generation, suggestions for implementation of user awareness approaches, research programming, and development of conceptual insights. The science and consumption domains are covered by 8 WP leaders and 21 Participants and will involve a much larger community of SCP experts from industry, government, and science. A close liaison with UNEP, promoting a 10 Year Framework of Programs on SCP will be organized. Finally, the CA should have to build a permanent, self-supporting research network in this field.

Focused on the development of System design for a sustainable pilot project aiming at an introduction of locally-based and long-lasting mobility system for low-income contexts in Africa, within the international research Global UNIDO Network of University Chairs on Innovation, involving some African and some European universities (among which the Politecnico di Milano).

The aim of this project was to develop an integrated methodology for the design of sustainable Product Service Systems (PSS), starting from three main thematic areas:

– PSS design (scenario development and sustainable PSS design)

– Assessment of environmental impacts (impact on micro, meso, and macro level)

– Success and failure factors (consumer acceptance, culture, and ethics)

These diverse approaches are converged in a unique methodology. The application of a common language as well as the definition of an ideal design process was crucial.

MEPSS is part of the Competitive and Sustainable Growth Programme of the Fifth Framework Programme, coordinated by PricewaterhouseCoopers N.V. with eight partners and 14 subcontractors.

The dimension of this project is strictly necessary, as its strength lies in its multidisciplinarity. This allows the chance to achieve one of the principle aims of the research: the development of an integrated methodology and theory on PSS.

Every scientific group of the project will provide its contribution to the development of this integrated methodology. At the same time, all of the results will be tested by an internal peer group and applied to pilot projects by other industrial partners (part of a larger group of participants who are coordinated through MEPSS).

The project proved promising because of its approach and because of the concreteness of the expected results, which were possible thanks to the direct application of the results and to the test of the set of tools and methods through pilot projects. All of the project participants agreed that the complexity of the problems raised from environmental degradation can be faced only through a complex approach made up of many different contributions. Communication among diverse disciplines is only possible through a common language and the overcoming of diverging purposes (industrial and private needs vs. social and public problems).

Preparation of the UNEP ecodesign guidance package: modules on Product Service Systems (PSS) and a module on internal communications.

Product-Service Systems and Sustainability, Orienting an ongoing trend towards sustainable solutions

SusHouse is concerned with developing and evaluating scenarios for transitions to sustainable households. It focuses on ‘Shopping, Cooking and Eating’,’Clothing Care’ and ‘Shelter’. The project was carried out by six research teams from five countries – Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom – from January 1998 to June 2000. It was funded by the European Union (Environment and Climate Research Programme Theme 4: on Human Dimensions of Environmental Change, ENV-CT97-0046).

System innovation and new business Idea, for the preparation of the 5° Framework program, coordinated by the CIR.IS research Centre of the DITec department of the Politecnico di Milano, funded by the European Union.

Research Analysis of the Socio-Economic and Technical Implication of Devising and Implementing a Policy on this Principle, funded by the European Union.

Co-coordinator of the strategic design area for the national (italian) research, Sole, vento, acqua, vegetazione e tecnologia avanzata quali matrici di un nuovo approccio progettuale al territorio, architettura e disegno industriale (Sun, wind, water, vegetation and advanced technologies as bases for a new design approach to territory, architecture, and design), coordinated by the Reserch Unit Pianificazione e progettazione urbano-architettonica INDACO dept. Politecnico di Milano, funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR).Union.

Promoter and coordinator of the national (Italian) research, Package of 3 software multimedia tools to support didactic activities on the themes of Life Cycle Design (LCD) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): Eco.cathedra, Eco.Oficina and Eco. disco, funded by the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPA now ISPRA).

Promoter and coordinator of the national (Italian) research, Network of labs for environmental requirements of industrial products. Establishment of a network of coordinated University labs as centers for students and for vocational training on the discipline of environmental requirements of industrial products, funded by the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPA now ISPRA).

Promoter and coordinator of the national (Italian) research, Handbook for a participatory design for sustainability, for the integration of Life Cycle Design of product and participatory design in the framework of system innovation processes, funded by the National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPA now ISPRA).