Design It! Solving Sustainability Problems by Applying Design Thinking

Environmental and sustainability problems create an ongoing need to further develop the toolbox of sustainability science. The method “design thinking”, originally applied in design engineering and business, serves as a tool to find the simplest and most likely explanation for a problem. It consists of a specific logical inference: starting from an observation, a theory which accounts for the observation is developed in a collaborative process. This abductive reasoning requires the designer to clear his mind of traditional solutions and to create a specific “working principle” that leads to new and creative problem solving.