Design Is How We Change the World! Can We Do It in Socially, Environmentally and Economically Acceptable Ways? Synthesizing Design Tools for This Utopian Concept

Abstract

Since the beginning, humans advanced their civilization by making better tools to improve their lives. Tools and products for better living were designed considering engineering (manufacturing) issues and cost (time and money as predominant criteria). It has become clear that not considering environment and society, both at local/global levels, has now become a major impediment affecting living conditions of large parts of earth and society. Design methodologies should lead to creative solutions considering engineering and economics for practicality but also environmental and social constraints for longevity. We propose a comprehensive design methodology based on multidisciplinary design for including the knowledge of humanities, and science and engineering and allowing for experts from these areas to provide various necessary inputs. For example, experts in humanities are expected to interact with stakeholders to evaluate their value systems to provide guidance for the design. The methodology that we synthesize is new and combines (i) Societal level impacts at all scales, (ii) Environmental impacts and (iii) Engineering design with economic impacts, including the consideration of uncertainties. The proposed Social-Environmental-Economical-Engineering-based-design Framework (SEEEF) can utilize tools such as circular design, donut economics, design based on environmental life cycle analysis, among others. SEEEF is quantity based and provide steps for evaluating any project or product in an objective manner and will help train engineers in design for sustainability and provide non-engineers a significant role in design and to increase their understanding of the hard constraints of engineering. Ultimately, SEEEF allows society to take an informed decision considering short/long term and local/global impacts much of which are affected by uncertainty.