04 – Design for Planet skills

There is a significant capability and skills gap:

71% of designers say they think demand will grow, but only 43% feel they have the capability to meet this.

Skills and knowledge are both a barrier and an enabler. Skills are rated the second and knowledge the fourth most important enabler (with technology rated highest). In terms of barriers, formal education is rated fifth, knowledge seventh and skills tenth, (with project timelines and budgets, and regulations in first and second place).

Only 46% of designers rate themselves proficient or expert in design for environmental impact.

Fewer than 50% feel their education has enabled them to design for environmental impact. Worryingly this is not an educational legacy issue - only 47% of 16–24-year-old designers believe their education has enabled them to design for environmental impact to a moderate or large extent.

Designers have higher levels of confidence in skills that are core to design practice such as analytical thinking, collaboration, communication, problem-framing and prototyping, but less confidence in the fundamentals of sustainability and business governance.

Designers have higher levels of confidence in design for planet approaches that are more generalist such as social design, sustainable materials design and design for sustainable behaviour change, but less confidence in more technical approaches such as biomimicry, biophilic design, circular design and eco-design.

As 45% of carbon emissions come from industrial production and land use – where circular design has an important role to play – these will be key skills in the transition to a green economy.

Skill levels vary across the design disciplines. Architecture, interior, urban and landscape designers, and product and industrial designers have the most expertise in designing for environmental impact (although the latter are further down the list when it comes to feeling their education has equipped them to do so). This seems largely related to levels of education required and Continuing Professional Development available, as well as the level of interaction with physical materials.

Systemic and policy designers, and service and experience designers have the least expertise, despite their pivotal role in dealing with the complex, interconnected issues of the climate and nature crises, and creating the services through which a new circular economy will function.

Levels of self-reported expertise increase with seniority with entry level designers (and most recent graduates) least proficient or expert.