What is Sustainability Design?

Sustainability Design is the less-talked-about but equally existential partner to Purpose Design. Sustainability Design, like Purpose Design, asks an equally important macro-level question about a business: "How can we design a business that is financially, environmentally and socially viable in equal measure?" Answering that question requires clarity about the Purpose, Brand, Operating Model ecosystem and Financial Model. The answer is inextricably linked to your stated purpose, because the way in which your business makes its money and treats the environment and society in which it operates goes to the heart of the authenticity of that statement. The authenticity of purpose has the ability to make or break your brand.

Sustainability Design can on occasion seem like something of an afterthought if your immediate focus is Operating Model or Service Design. The simple insight here is that financial, environmental and social viability are all great topics for applying design thinking to, and need not be left to the CFO alone to solve.

Common topics that make up a business financial model include:

• Operating, market and financial assumptions

• Revenue model – sources of income

• Cost structure – overheads and expenses required to operate the business

• Financial performance – net profit now and projected

• Current financial position (i.e., assets and liabilities) now and projected

• Cash flow – actual cash generation now and projected

Each of these topics lends itself to one or more design sessions, both individually and collectively.

It would be fair to say that globally we are currently witnessing the consequences of designing for profitability alone. It's the easy, but ultimately irresponsible, approach to characterise business sustainability as simply whether a business is profitable or not.

Environmental sustainability modelling requires aligning the business operating model to the ecosystem in which the business operates. This element of Sustainability Design is an opportunity to consider topics like circular economies and to design specifically to reinforce or implement them.

Social sustainability ties closely to brand and intended customer relationship and experience. It requires more than a simple donation to a worthy cause – it requires consideration of the level of humanity in the way the business treats its customers, employees and partners.

The output from a Sustainability Design activity is a set of Value Levers – tactical tweaks the business can deploy to become more performant and resilient. It helps to have a standard way to capture and document Value Levers, as they frequently represent opportunities for business innovation and maximising market differentiation.