Designers Accord Global Summit on Design Education and Sustainability.

On October 23 and 24, 2009, I attended the Designers Accord Global Summit on Design Education and Sustainability. One-hundreed individuals from the world’s most distinguished academic and professional institutions convened for two days of highly participatory discussion, planning, and action around the topic of design education and sustainability.

This group of thought-leaders, design educators, and experts engaged in discussions, challenged, and conceived of a new path for undergraduate and graduate design programs to integrate sustainability. Topics ranging from creating curricula and writing grants, to communicating to trustees and motivating students where an integral part of the event. These topics were culled from pre-Summit meetings and brainstorm sessions.

The format of the Summit was structured to enable this group to collectively create a toolkit of best practices and methods for integrating sustainability into design programs all over the world. This toolkit will have an enormous impact on the design community: by articulating each aspect of integrating sustainability into design education, we will ultimately reshape how designers conceive of their roles, responsibilities, and opportunities.

The output of the Summit is an online toolkit now available for anyone.