This thesis is concerned with semantics associated with ‘sustainable design’. In particular, I focus on how differences in conceptions of design and sustainability can affect the teaching and practice of design. Considering that designers shape and make the artificial for consumption and disposal, how can an exhaustive use of resources and excessive production of waste be sustainable? Consequently, I interviewed some leading global researchers, educators and practitioners in sustainable design, specifically asking what sustainable design means, how they teach and implement it, and why. New ways of thinking about sustainability and design have overtaken the reductionist approach affiliated with the environmental movements of the 1970s, and now include concepts, such as systems thinking, transdisciplinary design dialogues and citizens as co-designers. My intention shifted to discover if these progressive international understandings, approaches and rationale were reflected in design education and practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Using a qualitative and pragmatic grounded theory approach and constant comparative analysis methodology, I sought strategies of how sustainable designers overcame obstacles to the inclusion of sustainability in their disciplines. I propose that through more global ways of thinking about design can come broader ways of thinking about sustainability. I build on many current conceptions of sustainability education and sustainable design theories to reflect on how designers and educators are some of the most active contributors to social, environmental and economic change. Moreover, I suggest that a failure to recognise the complexities of sustainability can lead to single-issue ways of thinking that can restrict progress towards designing more sustainable futures. In this way, barriers such as a lack of understanding, confidence, importance and support emerge. In contrast, for designers (teachers and practitioners) and educators (from a wide variety of disciplines), recognition of shared common elements between sustainability and design, and sustainability and education can augment current practices and lead to opportunities for engaging in a wide variety of ways towards designing scenarios for more sustainable futures.
