041 Chapter Six: Expanding the Vision for a Just and Flourishing World

There’s a weight I feel, almost physically sometimes, when I truly stop and consider the power that design wields in our world. It’s immense, undeniable, and frankly, often unacknowledged in its full scope. I recall early in my career, working on projects where the focus was so intensely on aesthetics, functionality, or meeting a narrow client brief, that the ripple effects, the downstream consequences for communities, for the environment, for cultural practices if I by any chance I had conscience for them, felt like distant abstractions, easily brushed aside in the rush to deliver. But those consequences weren’t abstract for the people living them, or for the ecosystems bearing the load. Over time, through my practice, my teaching, and especially through the deep immersion of my doctoral research journey, I came face-to-face with the undeniable truth: design’s influence stretches far, far beyond the surface appearance or immediate utility of the things it produces. It permeates the very fabric of our lives, weaving itself into our societies, shaping our environments, embedding itself in our cultures, and configuring our political landscapes in ways both overt and deeply insidious.

Think about it. From the unseen algorithms subtly curating the information that shapes our worldview to the massive infrastructures – transportation networks, energy grids, housing developments – that structure our cities and determine possibilities; from the intricate healthcare systems we navigate in moments of vulnerability to the seemingly simple educational tools shaping the minds and values of future generations; design choices are constantly at play. They configure what’s possible and impossible, they distribute resources and opportunities (often inequitably), they embed certain values while marginalizing others, and they fundamentally mediate our relationships with each other and with the planet. Design is never neutral; it is always world-making.

And as humanity finds itself confronting challenges of unprecedented scale and interconnectedness – the terrifying reality of climate change threatening our very existence, the persistent and deepening chasms of social and economic inequality, the alarming depletion of finite resources, the insidious erosion of privacy and autonomy in the digital age, the systemic biases encoded within technologies that perpetuate historical injustices, and the complex, often brutal geopolitics of resource extraction and globalized labor – the need for a radically different approach to design feels less like a professional preference and more like an existential urgency. As I tried to articulate in the previous chapters mapping the emergence of this framework, the traditional boundaries of design practice – focused on discrete objects, isolated problems, or narrow commercial goals – are dissolving, or at least proving woefully inadequate. This demands a corresponding, profound evolution in our ethical consciousness, our sense of responsibility, and the very operational frameworks we use to guide our work. We simply can no longer afford the comfortable illusion that design is a neutral tool, passively responding to external demands. Its capacity to enact both immense good and truly catastrophic harm necessitates a fundamental reorientation, a deliberate grounding in ethical accountability.

It was out of this growing sense of urgency, this wrestling with design’s power and inadequacy, that the ethical core of the Symbiotic Design Framework became not just important, but absolutely central. This framework seeks to distinguish itself within the complex landscape of design thinking precisely by how it positions Ethics. It’s not merely one consideration on a checklist, not an optional module, not a final compliance review performed after the “real” design work is done. Instead, I came to see Ethics as the foundational cornerstone – the very ground, the bedrock – upon which the other crucial pillars of Sustainability, Social Responsibility, and even Economics must be constructed, interrogated, challenged, and constantly re-evaluated. How could we possibly talk meaningfully about sustainability without asking sustainable for whom? How could we discuss social responsibility without a deep ethical commitment to justice? How could we design economic models without asking if they serve genuine human flourishing?

To find robust moral guidance for such an undertaking, I felt the need to reach beyond fleeting trends or purely instrumental approaches. I found myself drawn towards enduring philosophical concepts that grapple with the very nature of a good life, like the Aristotelian notion of Eudaimonia. I began to understand this not just as individual happiness, but as a richer concept of collective human and ecological flourishing, of living well together, realizing our potential in a virtuous and fulfilling way within thriving communities and ecosystems. And for grounding this sometimes abstract ideal in concrete realities, I found invaluable tools in frameworks like Manfred Max-Neef’s analysis of Fundamental Human Needs – those universal requirements for survival, dignity, and meaningful participation in life that any just system must strive to meet. The Symbiotic Design Framework argues, therefore, that these four central mottos – Ethics, Sustainability, Social Responsibility, Economics – when viewed relentlessly through this primary ethical lens of pursuing collective flourishing and meeting fundamental needs, provide not just a compass but a critical apparatus, a set of interrogative tools for navigating the complex, often contradictory demands of contemporary design practice across all its diverse domains, from product design to policy design, from digital interfaces to urban planning.

But perhaps the most crucial realization in developing this ethical foundation was confronting the limitations of my own perspective, the inherent biases within the dominant design traditions I had inherited. Achieving genuinely ethical outcomes, I became convinced, requires actively seeking out, listening deeply to, and integrating wisdom and guidance from perspectives that have historically operated beyond the traditional, often Western-centric, male-dominated centers of power and knowledge production. It means recognizing that a truly robust ethics cannot be monolithic. It must embrace plurality. It requires engaging deeply with the critical insights offered by local and Indigenous knowledge systems worldwide, with the relational focus of feminist ethics, with the unflinching analyses of anti-racist and critical race theories, with the power-challenging perspectives of decolonial thought, with the nuanced understanding of overlapping oppressions offered by intersectional analysis, with the demands for access and liberation from disability justice movements, and with the vital critiques and alternative visions emerging from scholars, activists, and communities in the Global South.

Incorporating these diverse perspectives, I want to stress, is not an act of mere additive inclusion, not simply about making the framework seem more ‘diverse’. It felt, and feels, like a necessary, non-negotiable step towards actively dismantling the epistemic injustices – the silencing and devaluing of certain ways of knowing – that are deeply embedded within dominant design paradigms. It’s about forging a more robust, more relevant, more resilient, and ultimately, a truly liberatory ethical foundation for design itself. Consequently, the Symbiotic Design Framework advocates for nothing less than a profound paradigm shift within design – one moving consciously away from potentially harmful defaults (like prioritizing efficiency over equity, or novelty over longevity, or corporate profit over community well-being) towards a practice where ethical considerations, dynamically enriched by this essential plurality of voices, actively guide the co-creation of environmental integrity, substantive social equity, and resilient, needs-focused economic models. The ultimate aspiration, the driving vision behind this entire endeavor, is fostering a truly symbiotic, mutually flourishing relationship – a state of dynamic, respectful interdependence – between humanity in all its staggering diversity, the powerful technologies we create, the precious planet that sustains us all, and indeed, all living beings, irrespective of their origin, identity, ability, or species.

The core proposition, the radical reorientation I am advocating for, is therefore this fundamental shift in perspective: Ethics, understood broadly and plurally as the ongoing pursuit of justice and collective flourishing for all, is established as the primary guiding principle. It becomes the non-negotiable cornerstone upon which the essential considerations of Sustainability (our profound ecological obligations across time and species), Social Responsibility (our intricate obligations to each other, grounded in equity, dignity, and justice), and Economics (our systems for provisioning, exchange, and ensuring needs are met) are constructed, continually evaluated, and held rigorously accountable. These four “mottos” are conceptualized not as separate, potentially competing silos that allow for trade-offs (sacrificing the environment for profit, or social equity for efficiency), but as intrinsically interconnected domains, pervasively informed and shaped by ongoing, critical ethical reflection and critique. This demands from us, as designers and citizens, a constant, sometimes uncomfortable, questioning of our own assumptions, a critical examination of hidden power dynamics, and an unwavering commitment to understanding and taking responsibility for the far-reaching downstream consequences of design decisions across all four domains.

As I developed these ideas, I realized this convergence within the Symbiotic Design Framework finds strong resonance and reinforcement alongside other vital contemporary concepts and movements pushing for similar transformations. John Elkington’s Triple Bottom Line (People, Planet, Profit), introduced back in 1997, while sometimes frustratingly co-opted or diluted into simplistic accounting, undeniably initiated a crucial, mainstream conversation about the need to integrate economic prosperity with environmental protection and social equity. Tony Fry’s concept of Redirective Practice emphasizes design’s potential and responsibility to actively foster positive socio-ecological transitions through collaborative, future-oriented, and ethically conscious action, moving beyond merely solving immediate problems. And perhaps most significantly for the ethical core, the principles and practices rapidly emerging from the Design Justice movement, articulated powerfully by Sasha Costanza-Chock and nurtured by the Design Justice Network, offer a potent framework and a vibrant community explicitly dedicated to challenging structural inequalities, centering the voices and leadership of marginalized communities whose lives are most impacted by design decisions, and actively using design processes as tools to build worlds that prioritize collective liberation and ecological sustainability. Design Justice explicitly seeks to dismantle systemic oppression – including racism, sexism, ableism, colonialism, and capitalism’s harmful aspects – both within the design field and through the outcomes of design work. Its very existence underscores the absolute necessity for a clear, explicit, action-oriented, and profoundly justice-focused ethical foundation for any design practice claiming relevance today.

The Symbiotic Design Framework attempts to address this critical need directly by establishing its four interconnected mottos as guiding principles. These are not static goals but active areas of ethical inquiry and action. Their application is further deepened and given direction by integrating the philosophical pursuit of Eudaimonia (understood broadly as interdependent human and ecological flourishing, encompassing the holistic well-being and potential development of individuals, communities, and ecosystems) and the pragmatic grounding provided by Max-Neef’s concept of fundamental human needs, which helps us identify the universal, essential requirements for survival, dignity, freedom, and meaningful participation in life that any ethical system must address. By weaving these diverse yet complementary threads together – the four interconnected mottos, the aspirational goal of collective flourishing, the non-negotiable imperative of meeting fundamental needs for all, and the critical, power-aware insights drawn from diverse justice movements and knowledge traditions – the framework offers, I hope, a holistic approach to design that moves decisively beyond surface aesthetics, narrow functionalism, or purely market-driven logics. Its purpose is to ensure that the entire design process, is rigorously grounded in ethical considerations, deep social responsibility, genuinely participatory methods, and critically informed decision-making. The ultimate aim is not just to create incrementally ‘better’ products or services, but to contribute, however modestly, to the fundamental betterment, rebalancing, and healing of our deeply interconnected world.

042 Ethics – The Foundational Cornerstone: Embracing Plurality in the Pursuit of Collective Flourishing

So, let’s delve deeper into that foundational cornerstone: Ethics. Sitting at the apex, forming the core, and providing the very ground upon which the entire Symbiotic Design Framework rests, is this principle. Within this context, as I came to understand it through my research and reflection, Ethics is conceptualized not as a static, rigid set of culturally specific rules to be memorized, nor as a detached philosophical game played by academics in ivory towers. Instead, it is framed as the dynamic, ongoing, overarching pursuit of the supreme idea of good for all. This signifies a fundamental, non-negotiable commitment woven into the very fabric of the design process: a commitment to actively fostering outcomes that are demonstrably just, equitable, genuinely beneficial, and deeply considerate of the well-being, dignity, autonomy, and agency of all living beings – human and, crucially, non-human – as well as the integrity and health of the planet itself. This consideration, importantly, must extend across time, encompassing not only present impacts but also the potential consequences for generations yet to come, echoing the spirit of intergenerational equity highlighted in foundational sustainability documents like the Brundtland Report (“Our Common Future”).

This expansive vision of ethics aligns strongly, as I mentioned, with the rich philosophical concept of Eudaimonia. While often translated simply as ‘happiness’, its Aristotelian roots suggest something far deeper: human flourishing, living well, actualizing one’s virtuous potential within a community. Within the Symbiotic Design Framework, I felt it necessary to expand this concept explicitly to encompass collective flourishing, recognizing that individual well-being is inseparable from the health of the community and the ecosystem. Ethical design, viewed through this eudaimonic lens, should therefore relentlessly strive to create the enabling conditions – the supportive social structures, the healthy environmental contexts, the fair economic arrangements, the empowering technological affordances – that allow for this collective Eudaimonia to emerge, create the appropriate relations and be sustained. This means fostering environments where diverse individuals, communities, and entire ecosystems can realize their unique potentials in a virtuous, fulfilling, and fundamentally interdependent manner. It’s about designing for life, in its broadest sense.

Establishing Ethics, conceptualized as this profound, inclusive, and pluralistic pursuit of flourishing for all, as the primary driver marks, I believe, a crucial and deliberate departure from many conventional approaches to design. How often have I seen ethical considerations treated as secondary constraints, almost annoyances to be navigated around? Or as optional ‘nice-to-have’ add-ons if the budget allows? Or reduced to implicit, unexamined assumptions about what constitutes ‘good’ design? Or, perhaps most cynically, treated merely as box-ticking compliance exercises to mitigate legal risk or manage public relations? The framework fundamentally rejects these dilutions. It starts from the premise that all design is inherently value-laden and inevitably carries significant moral weight.

Design is never, ever neutral and this became a mantra during my research. Every line drawn, every material chosen, every algorithm coded, every service structured – it always encodes certain values while simultaneously marginalizing others. It always distributes benefits and burdens, often unequally. It always shapes possibilities and imposes constraints. We must constantly remember, as I argued earlier based on my explorations, that every seemingly technical decision made in design—from the choice of a default setting to the architecture of a city plan, from the sourcing of cobalt for batteries to the governance structure of a digital platform—is intrinsically a political decision, shaping power relations and resource allocation. And because it is political, it is inescapably an ethical decision, demanding justification, transparency, and accountability. This perspective resonates powerfully with critiques emerging from fields like Design Justice and Critical Race Theory (CRT), which forcefully challenge the persistent and dangerous myth of neutrality in design and technology, revealing how seemingly objective systems often embed and perpetuate historical injustices.

Now, when embarking on the complex, often thorny terrain of ethical deliberation within design, I realized it was crucial to acknowledge the limitations inherent in relying solely on the traditional toolkit of Western ethical frameworks – primarily utilitarianism (judging actions based on their consequences, aiming for the “greatest good for the greatest number”), deontology (focusing on duties, rules, and universal principles, à la Kant), and virtue ethics (emphasizing the character and habits of the moral agent, following Aristotle). These schools of thought offer valuable analytical lenses and have undeniably shaped centuries of Western moral philosophy and legal systems. They provide ways to structure arguments and analyze dilemmas. However, they have also been subjected to significant and valid critique, particularly regarding their potential Eurocentrism (often presenting culturally specific views as universal), their tendency towards abstract universalism that can erase crucial context and difference, their historical development intertwined with patriarchal and colonial power structures, and their frequent inadequacy in fully addressing systemic injustices, the complexities of relational obligations, or the novel ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies.

Consider their application: Utilitarianism’s calculus can readily justify sacrificing the interests or rights of minority groups if it benefits the majority – a deeply problematic outcome for ethical design aiming for inclusivity. Deontology’s rigid rules can falter when duties conflict (e.g., duty to client vs. duty to public safety) or when facing unprecedented situations where existing rules don’t apply (e.g., gene editing, autonomous weapons). Virtue ethics, while laudably emphasizing character development, can sometimes lack clear, actionable guidance for resolving specific, complex design dilemmas involving multiple stakeholders with conflicting values and interests. How does one decide which virtue takes precedence in a particular design trade-off? Acknowledging these limitations doesn’t mean discarding these tools entirely, but it absolutely necessitates supplementing them and critically examining their underlying assumptions.

This acknowledgement compels us towards a commitment to epistemic justice – actively recognizing, valuing, and learning from knowledge systems and ethical frameworks that have been historically marginalized, silenced, or dismissed as ‘primitive’ or ‘irrational’ by dominant Western discourse. For me, this meant consciously moving beyond a solely Western philosophical canon to engage with the rich, diverse tapestry of ethical thinking found across the globe. Feminist ethics, particularly the Ethics of Care developed initially by Carol Gilligan in her critique of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development and further elaborated by thinkers like Nel Noddings and Joan Tronto, offered a powerful and necessary counter-narrative. By centering relationships, interdependence, vulnerability, context, and the moral significance of specific practices like attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness in meeting others’ needs, the Ethics of Care provides a vital lens for design. After all, isn’t design fundamentally about shaping and mediating relationships – between people, between people and technology, between people and their environments? Its focus on concrete needs and relational obligations felt far more grounded in the realities of practice than abstract universal principles often did. Other feminist critiques, like those highlighted by Alison Jaggar, also exposed the patriarchal biases embedded in traditional ethics. Also revealing was a seminar I organized for students in one of my research design courses at Finis Terrae University in Chile. The invitation sought to bring together the often forgotten voices of women doing research design. Dr. Daniela Larrea, Dr. Ángel Dotor, and Dr. Jimena Odetti, from different parts of Latin America, presented their work, which covered very different areas of design, but in all of them, one could see an eminently ethical stance toward their work and the communities with which they worked. Each, in unison with their work, very naturally revealed their ethical postulates and in all three cases, they sought a better future for all.

Similarly, exploring local and Indigenous knowledge systems from around the world revealed profoundly sophisticated ethical frameworks often emphasizing principles alien to dominant Western thought. Deep relationality extending beyond the human sphere – viewing land, water, animals, plants, even seemingly inanimate objects as kin, as active participants in a shared community of life. Principles of reciprocity, demanding a mutual give-and-take, a responsibility to care for that which sustains you. A sense of stewardship or kinship towards the natural world, rather than ownership and domination. An understanding of well-being grounded in balance, harmony, and interconnectedness. Perspectives like the Haudenosaunee Seventh Generation principle I mentioned earlier, or concepts like Buen Vivir from the Andes, offered invaluable guidance for cultivating genuine, long-term sustainability and social harmony far beyond the mechanistic or purely utilitarian approaches often found in mainstream environmentalism. Integrating such perspectives felt vital for moving beyond the anthropocentric (human-centered) biases often embedded in Western ethics and embracing a truly ecocentric ethical stance that recognizes the intrinsic value of all life.

Furthermore, grappling with ethics in our intensely globalized, interconnected, yet profoundly unequal world forces us to navigate the complex tension between potentially universal principles and inescapable cultural particularity. How do we uphold fundamental rights while respecting diverse values? My research led me to believe that we must prioritize, above all, the crucial foundation provided by globally recognized standards and agreements – documents forged through difficult international consensus that articulate essential baseline principles. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1948), which establishes fundamental rights and freedoms for all people; key international environmental accords like the Paris Agreement on climate change (2015) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992); internationally agreed development frameworks like the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2015), which set targets for poverty reduction, health, education, equality, and environmental protection; core labor standards safeguarding worker rights established by the International Labour Organization (ILO) (1998); and aspirational documents promoting ecological integrity and social justice like The Earth Charter (2000). Emerging legal and philosophical concepts like the Rights of Nature, gaining traction in some jurisdictions, add further vital layers to this evolving understanding of our obligations. These agreements articulate essential baseline principles – profound respect for human dignity, non-discrimination, protection of fundamental freedoms, the imperative to safeguard ecological integrity for present and future generations – that, I argue, should transcend cultural differences and serve as non-negotiable ethical guardrails for all design practice. The Symbiotic Design Framework explicitly aligns with and seeks to uphold these hard-won universal standards.

However, relying solely on universal principles is insufficient and potentially dangerous. Ethical design must also demonstrate profound cultural sensitivity and engage respectfully, humbly, and critically with the diverse values, norms, beliefs, and worldviews of the specific communities being worked with (not designed for or at). It also demands consideration of impacts on other affected groups who may not be directly involved. This requires moving decisively beyond a simplistic, often arrogant universalism that can inadvertently impose dominant cultural norms and values, erasing difference and perpetuating harm. It means embracing what decolonial thinkers like Arturo Escobar term pluriversality – the radical recognition that “a world where many worlds fit” is not only possible but ethically necessary. It involves actively challenging the coloniality – the enduring logics of power, control, and knowledge rooted in colonialism, as analyzed by thinkers like Mignolo, Quijano, and Maldonado-Torres – that is often deeply embedded in seemingly universal design standards, technologies, and processes. It demands actively seeking to understand and respect different ontological frameworks (beliefs about what is real) and epistemological frameworks (beliefs about how we know things).

This is incredibly challenging work. It requires deep humility, active listening, a willingness to constantly question one’s own deeply ingrained assumptions, and the courage to sit with discomfort. It means valuing situated knowledge – the unique insights, perspectives, and expertise derived from the specific social, cultural, historical, and embodied locations of individuals and groups, particularly, as feminist standpoint theorists like Patricia Hill Collins emphasize, those who have been historically marginalized by dominant power structures. Engaging meaningfully with perspectives from the Global South is absolutely vital here, as scholars and activists from these regions often bring powerful critiques of ongoing neocolonial dynamics like data colonialism, articulate demands for data sovereignty and technological autonomy, and emphasize the critical need for culturally-aware design processes that respect local values, contexts, and aspirations. Ron Eglash’s inspiring work creating Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs), which translate heritage algorithms embedded in Indigenous craft practices (like African fractal patterns in textiles or architecture) into tools for teaching STEM concepts, provides a brilliant example of how cultural knowledge can be centered respectfully as a source of innovation, empowerment, and what he calls generative justice – using heritage to generate new forms of value and opportunity within communities, rather than simply extracting it. Navigating the complexities where universal principles might appear to clash with local norms or practices requires careful, context-sensitive deliberation, prioritizing the safeguarding of fundamental rights while striving for solutions that are genuinely culturally appropriate, community-endorsed, and contextually relevant. This often necessitates open, transparent dialogue, collaborative problem-solving, and genuinely participatory methods where communities have real agency.

Translating this multifaceted, pluralistic ethical commitment into tangible design practice demands a fundamental shift: from ethics being a passive consideration or an afterthought, to becoming an active, conscious, critical, and reflective capacity embedded throughout the entire design lifecycle, from the earliest stages of framing a problem to the long-term monitoring of impacts. As designers, we are called, as the Symbiotic Design Framework suggests, to move beyond the purely technical or logistical question of how something can be achieved, to rigorously and repeatedly interrogate whether it should be created in the first place, for whom it truly serves (and who might be harmed or excluded), under what social and ecological conditions, and at what often hidden or deferred social, cultural, environmental, and economic costs. Does this proposed design, this system, this intervention, genuinely contribute to, or does it potentially undermine, the possibility of collective Eudaimonia, of shared flourishing?

This requires cultivating a sharp critical lens to identify and actively challenge designs, systems, or processes that risk perpetuating harm, exacerbating existing inequalities (whether based on race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, geography, or other factors), contributing to ecological degradation, undermining democratic participation, eroding social trust, or violating human dignity. It involves applying analytical frameworks like intersectionality, pioneered by Kimberlé Crenshaw and elaborated by Patricia Hill Collins, to understand how multiple axes of oppression (racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, colonialism, etc.) intersect and compound each other, and how design interventions might impact individuals differently based on their unique position within this complex “matrix of domination”.

Ethical design practice, therefore, champions radical transparency in decision-making processes, demands full accountability for the outcomes and impacts of design work (both intended and unintended), and requires a proactive, unwavering commitment to the well-being, agency, and empowerment of all affected parties. This explicitly includes the difficult but necessary work of centering the voices and prioritizing the needs and leadership of marginalized communities whose perspectives are often systematically excluded, ignored, or tokenized in traditional design processes – a core tenet of Design Justice. It requires designers like myself to constantly acknowledge our own positionality – our identities, experiences, privileges, and biases – and the power we inevitably wield within the design process. It means shedding the comfortable, often illusory, mantle of the neutral, objective expert and instead embracing roles as responsible stewards, attentive facilitators, thoughtful collaborators, and sometimes even advocates, wielding our creative agency thoughtfully, ethically, and in service of collective well-being. It means constantly asking ourselves, individually and collectively: Does this work contribute positively to collective flourishing and justice? This deeply ingrained ethical lens, dynamically enriched by a plurality of global perspectives and relentlessly committed to justice, becomes the indispensable prerequisite, the interpretative key, for understanding and activating the subsequent, interconnected mottos of Sustainability, Social Responsibility, and Economics within the Symbiotic Design Framework. It transforms ethics from a perceived constraint into the very source of creative, responsible, relevant, and potentially transformative design practice. It may also, crucially, necessitate moments of refusal or resistance – saying no to harmful projects, challenging unethical briefs, designing tools for dissent – aligning with disruptive ethical stances like those articulated by scholars like Miguel A. De La Torre from Latina/o perspectives, who argue for an ethics that actively challenges oppressive systems from within.

043 Sustainability – An Ethical Obligation Across Time, Species, and Justice

When we view Sustainability through the foundational lens of Ethics – understood as this active, pluralistic pursuit of collective flourishing (Eudaimonia) for all beings, both present and future – its meaning within the Symbiotic Design Framework undergoes a fundamental transformation. It transcends the common, often frustratingly narrow, interpretations that reduce it to merely “green” product design, superficial eco-efficiency tweaks, isolated technological fixes, or marketing buzzwords. Instead, Sustainability is framed unequivocally as a profound and inescapable ethical obligation. It’s not just a technical problem to solve; it’s a moral imperative arising directly from our interconnectedness and interdependence.

The concept of Sustainability, as envisioned within this framework, certainly finds its initial spark and historical anchor in the widely recognized definition put forth by the Brundtland Commission in their 1987 report, “Our Common Future”: sustainability means “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This concept of intergenerational equity was groundbreaking and remains crucially important. However, reflecting on how this definition has often been co-opted, I felt the framework needed to push further. The Brundtland definition, while valuable, has frequently been leveraged to justify economic models and development pathways that, under a veneer of ‘sustainability’, actively contribute to environmental degradation, exacerbate social inequities, and enable sophisticated forms of greenwashing. Therefore, the framework’s foundational ethical commitment to the good for all demands a more expansive and critical understanding of sustainability. It must encompass not only the rights and well-being of present and future human generations but also explicitly recognize the intrinsic value, dignity, and right to flourish of all species and the complex ecosystems that constitute our shared biosphere. Furthermore, simply ‘sustaining’ the current, often deeply unjust and ecologically precarious, status quo is insufficient. The ethical imperative, I believe, pushes us towards actively regenerative approaches – practices that aim not just to minimize harm or maintain current conditions, but to actively restore, heal, and enhance the health and vitality of both social and ecological systems.

This deeper, more relational understanding resonates profoundly with, and finds powerful expression in, many traditional knowledge (TK), local knowledge (LK), and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) systems held by Indigenous peoples and local communities across the globe. These traditions, developed over millennia of intimate observation and interaction with specific environments, often embody principles of deep relationality that stand in stark contrast to the dualistic, exploitative human-nature relationship often underpinning Western thought. They frequently view humans not as separate from or inherently superior to nature, but as integral members of an intricate, interdependent web of life. Concepts like the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) “Seventh Generation” principle, which mandates considering the impact of decisions on descendants seven generations into the future, exemplify this profound sense of temporal responsibility and interconnectedness. It’s a stark contrast to the short-term profit motives driving much of modern industry. Furthermore, local and traditional ethics frequently emphasize principles of reciprocity – a sense of mutual give-and-take, of responsibility to care for the land, plants, and animals that provide sustenance – and a feeling of stewardship or kinship, rather than anthropocentric ownership and domination, towards the natural world. Learning from and respectfully integrating such perspectives (without appropriation) felt absolutely vital for moving beyond the limitations and biases often embedded in mainstream Western environmentalism and embracing a truly ecocentric ethical stance – one that acknowledges the intrinsic value of ecosystems, biodiversity, ecological processes, and the finite nature of the planetary resources upon which all flourishing, human and non-human, ultimately depends.

This robust ethical framing shifts sustainability from being perceived primarily as a technical problem-solving exercise (although rigorous science and technological innovation remain absolutely crucial components) to understanding it as a fundamental moral imperative. This imperative must actively guide all design choices that impact the environment, resource flows, land use patterns, energy consumption cycles, waste generation streams, and biodiversity. Importantly, it necessitates a critical understanding that ecological health is not, and has never been, separate from the long-term health, viability, and justice of our social structures and economic systems. Environmental degradation and social injustice are often two sides of the same coin, deeply intertwined symptoms stemming from the same root causes: exploitative systems, colonial legacies, racialized capitalism, and ideologies of domination. As decolonial thinkers like Arturo Escobar forcefully critique, dominant Western models of “development” and “progress,” often propagated globally through design, technology, and economic policies, frequently perpetuate environmentally destructive, extractive logics that are directly linked to colonial histories and ongoing neocolonial power dynamics. These models have historically treated both nature and marginalized human communities as mere resources to be exploited for the benefit of a privileged few, externalizing the devastating costs.

Therefore, an ethically driven approach to sustainability, as championed by the Symbiotic Design Framework, mandates a fundamental, systemic shift away from the deeply entrenched, inherently unsustainable linear “take-make-dispose” economic models that characterize industrial modernity and fuel consumer culture. These models rely on the continuous extraction of virgin resources (often sourced under exploitative conditions), energy-intensive manufacturing processes, planned obsolescence, and the generation of vast amounts of waste, systematically externalizing environmental and social costs onto vulnerable ecosystems and future generations. Instead, ethical sustainability demands the active design, promotion, and cultivation of circular and regenerative systems.

This requires nothing less than a paradigm shift in design thinking and practice:

• Prioritizing durability, longevity, and fostering emotional connection to artifacts to counteract throwaway culture.
• Designing explicitly for repairability, adaptability, modularity, and ease of maintenance, empowering users and extending product lifespans.
• Planning for eventual graceful disassembly, component reuse, remanufacturing, or safe biological decomposition (closing the loop).
• Minimizing resource depletion through dematerialization (doing more with less material), resource efficiency, and designing services instead of just products.
• Actively closing material loops through effective, non-toxic recycling and creative upcycling strategies.
• Shifting rapidly towards renewable energy sources and designing for ultra-low energy consumption.
• Moving beyond ‘less harm’ towards designing systems that actively restore and regenerate ecosystem health (e.g., through biomimicry, regenerative agriculture principles applied to supply chains, ecological restoration integrated into infrastructure projects).

This necessitates adopting a rigorous lifecycle thinking approach, systematically considering the environmental and social impacts associated with every stage of a product’s or service’s existence – from raw material extraction and processing, through manufacturing and distribution, during the use phase (energy consumption, maintenance needs), and finally, through end-of-life management (reuse, recycling, disposal).

Crucially, however, ethically grounded sustainability, as viewed through the framework, must explicitly recognize and actively address the deep, often inseparable interconnection between environmental degradation and social injustice. As pioneering environmental justice scholars like Robert Bullard have extensively documented over decades, the burdens of pollution, toxic waste facilities, resource depletion, exposure to environmental hazards, and the devastating impacts of climate change consistently fall disproportionately on low-income communities, communities of color, Indigenous peoples, and populations in the Global South. These are often the very groups who have contributed least to causing these environmental problems and possess the fewest resources to cope with their effects or influence decision-making processes. This isn’t accidental; it constitutes environmental racism and systemic injustice, directly undermining the potential for Eudaimonia and basic well-being in these communities. Therefore, ethical sustainability cannot be separated from the pursuit of justice. It must advocate, from a fundamental moral standpoint, for:

• Distributive justice: Fair and equitable distribution of environmental benefits (like access to clean air, clean water, healthy food, safe housing, green spaces, renewable energy) and environmental burdens (like pollution exposure, proximity to waste sites).
• Procedural justice: Fair and meaningful participation of all affected communities, particularly marginalized ones, in environmental decision-making processes that impact their lives and environments.
• Restorative justice: Taking action to acknowledge and remediate historical environmental injustices and their ongoing legacies.

The principles of Design Justice align powerfully here, demanding that sustainability efforts be co-created with and accountable to frontline communities, prioritizing their needs, knowledge, and leadership. Sustainable solutions that ignore or exacerbate existing social inequities are, by definition within this ethical framework, fundamentally flawed and unsustainable in the truest sense.

Designers working within the Symbiotic Design Framework are thus ethically bound, I argue, to move far beyond simplistic “eco-friendly” labels or focusing solely on material choices. They must consider the full, complex, interconnected planetary, generational, social, and ecological justice impacts of their creations. This involves daunting but necessary work: critically examining global supply chains for ethical labor practices and environmental impacts (not just tier one suppliers); rigorously assessing the energy and resource intensity of products, services, and systems throughout their lifecycle; understanding potential impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem function, and planetary boundaries; ensuring equitable access to the benefits of sustainable solutions; and actively designing systems that foster both ecological resilience and social equity simultaneously. It requires integrating diverse forms of knowledge – scientific, technical, economic, but also crucially, local, traditional, embodied, and experiential knowledge – and collaborating genuinely across disciplines and, most importantly, with communities themselves to co-create solutions that contribute authentically to the potential for all beings to live well, justly, and sustainably on our shared, finite, and precious planet.

044 Social Responsibility – An Ethical Commitment to Well-being, Equity, Dignity, and Collective Liberation

Flowing directly and inextricably from that foundational ethical commitment to the good for all, and the active creation of conditions for collective Eudaimonia, the principle of Social Responsibility within the Symbiotic Design Framework signifies, for me, a radical departure from the often superficial or instrumental notions that dominate corporate discourse. It moves far beyond the checklists of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, beyond mere compliance with minimum legal standards, and even beyond well-intentioned user-centered design approaches that, however valuable, can sometimes inadvertently reduce complex human beings to simplified ‘users’, consumers, “personas” or data points to be optimized for engagement or extraction.

Instead, Social Responsibility, as I came to understand and articulate it within the framework, embodies an active, profound, critical, and ongoing ethical commitment to fostering collective well-being, promoting substantive equity (not just equality of opportunity, but equity of outcomes), actively challenging systemic injustices, and contributing to broader movements for social justice and collective liberation through the very act and outcomes of designing. This necessitates a constant, critical assessment of the potential social, cultural, and political impacts – both immediate and long-term, intended and unintended – of all design decisions on diverse individuals, communities, and social structures. It demands moving beyond passive ‘do no harm’ sentiments towards proactively designing for genuine inclusivity, meaningful accessibility, mutual respect, and the empowerment of individuals and communities. It fundamentally refuses to treat people as passive recipients of design interventions, abstract users devoid of context, sources of data for corporate or state surveillance, or pools of exploitable labor within precarious gig economies or global supply chains. The ethical foundation demands that design must strive to serve humanity in its broadest, most diverse, most complex sense, paying relentless, critical attention to issues of justice, fairness, dignity, autonomy, cultural integrity, and the creation of social conditions necessary for all people, particularly those most marginalized, to flourish. This deepens the historical calls for social responsibility in design, like those passionately articulated by Victor Papanek decades ago, by integrating contemporary critical lenses focused on power, systems of oppression, intersectionality, and liberation, as powerfully articulated within Design Justice frameworks.

At its core, ethically responsible design intrinsically values and actively upholds human dignity and autonomy in all its forms. It strives to create solutions – whether tangible products, digital services, physical environments, complex systems, organizational policies, or modes of communication – that are genuinely accessible, usable, understandable, culturally resonant, safe, respectful, and truly beneficial to people from the widest possible range of backgrounds, abilities, identities, ages, genders, sexual orientations, belief systems, languages, and socioeconomic strata. This requires moving decisively beyond the deeply flawed practice of designing for a mythical ‘average’ user – a practice often rooted in unexamined, biased assumptions that implicitly center the needs, experiences, and capabilities of dominant groups (typically white, male, able-bodied, affluent, cisgender, heterosexual individuals in the Global North) while rendering everyone else invisible or ‘edge cases’. Embracing principles of Universal Design, as articulated by The Center for Universal Design, offers a valuable starting point, aiming to create designs usable by all people to the greatest extent possible without the need for adaptation or specialized design.

However, a truly robust ethical responsibility demands going further, engaging deeply and critically with the insights and critiques offered by Disability Studies and the powerful Disability Justice movement. Scholars, like Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, critique the limitations of the purely medical model of disability (which locates disability solely within the individual’s body or mind as a deficit to be fixed) and highlight the social model, which emphasizes how social, environmental, and attitudinal barriers are often the primary source of disablement, effectively excluding people with impairments from full participation in society. Disability Justice, emerging primarily from the experiences and activism of disabled people of color and queer/trans disabled individuals, pushes this analysis further. It emphasizes the crucial intersectionality of disability with other forms of oppression (racism, sexism, poverty, transphobia, colonialism), critiques the often assimilationist goals of mainstream disability rights movements, centers the leadership and expertise of the most impacted individuals within multiply marginalized communities, and advocates for collective access and collective liberation rather than simply individual inclusion into existing unjust systems. It fiercely demands adherence to the principle “nothing about us without us,” necessitating authentic co-design processes where disabled people are not just consulted as users, but are central partners, leaders, and decision-makers in shaping the solutions, policies, and environments that impact their lives. Critiquing pervasive societal ableism – the discrimination and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior – and challenging the social construction of “normalcy” becomes a crucial ethical task for designers aiming for genuine social responsibility.

Furthermore, ethically grounded social responsibility requires us to actively confront, challenge, and refuse to participate in design choices that reinforce harmful stereotypes, perpetuate discrimination (whether conscious or unconscious), deepen social divides and polarization, exploit human vulnerabilities (e.g., through manipulative “dark patterns” in user interfaces designed to trick users, or predatory algorithms targeting financially insecure individuals), or contribute to systemic harms like racial inequality, gender bias, xenophobia, or the erosion of democratic discourse. This necessitates adopting an explicitly Anti-Racist design stance, moving beyond superficial diversity statements or the flawed logic of “color-blind” methodologies. As scholars like Crystal C. Hall and Mindy Hernandez advocate, and informed by the foundational insights of Critical Race Theory (CRT) developed by scholars like Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, and Jean Stefancic, an anti-racist approach demands:

• Actively acknowledging how racism operates not just through individual prejudice but systemically within institutions, technologies, cultural norms, and design practices themselves.
• Rigorously interrogating seemingly neutral standards, datasets, algorithms, design processes, and aesthetic conventions for hidden racialized impacts and biases.
• Intentionally designing processes and outcomes to actively counter bias, promote racial equity, and dismantle racist structures.
• Addressing the stark historical and ongoing underrepresentation of minority group designers within the design field itself, recognizing this lack of representation as both a symptom and a cause of biased outcomes, as highlighted decades ago by figures like Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller.

Applying an intersectional lens, as developed by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in the context of Black women’s experiences with discrimination and further elaborated as a critical analytical tool by sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, is absolutely essential for understanding the complex realities of social responsibility. Intersectionality illuminates how individuals often experience multiple, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing forms of oppression or privilege based on the complex interplay of their race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, religion, age, immigration status, and other identity markers. It helps us understand, for instance, why the experiences of a disabled Black trans woman might differ significantly from those of a disabled white cisgender man, and why designing for monolithic categories (like “women” or “disabled people” or “immigrants”) is inherently inadequate and potentially harmful, erasing crucial differences within those groups. An intersectional approach requires designers to consider these interlocking systems of power – what Collins terms the “matrix of domination” – and analyze how design interventions might uniquely impact individuals situated at these intersections, ensuring that solutions aimed at helping one group do not inadvertently create new barriers or exacerbate harms for others.

Achieving genuinely socially responsible outcomes, I came to realize through both research and practice, often requires fundamentally restructuring the design process itself. Moving away from top-down, ‘expert’-driven models towards embracing genuinely participatory and co-design methodologies is often crucial. However, participation itself must be implemented ethically, critically, and equitably, moving beyond tokenistic consultation or extractive ‘user research’ towards models that facilitate genuine power sharing and community ownership. The principles developed by the Design Justice Network offer invaluable practical and ethical guidance here. These principles emphasize, among other things:

• Centering the voices, experiences, knowledge, and leadership of those directly impacted by the design outcomes, particularly those who have been historically marginalized by existing systems.
• Explicitly challenging and transforming oppressive power structures within the design process itself, ensuring equitable participation and decision-making authority.
• Recognizing and valuing diverse forms of knowledge and expertise, especially the lived experiences and cultural knowledge of community members, alongside technical expertise.
• Prioritizing non-exploitative processes that build community capacity, share resources fairly, and foster collective ownership and control over the design outcomes.
• Focusing on measurable impacts that demonstrably contribute to collective liberation, ecological sustainability, and community self-determination.

This approach reflects a deep ethical commitment to share power, foster genuine collaboration, and design with, not for. It resonates strongly with the relational focus of the Ethics of Care, emphasizing attentiveness, responsiveness, and building trust with participants, and aligns with the community-centered values found in many traditional ethical frameworks.

Ultimately, Social Responsibility within the Symbiotic Design Framework encourages us, as designers, to aim higher than simply mitigating harm or meeting narrowly defined individual needs. It pushes us to actively consider how our work can contribute positively to strengthening social cohesion, fostering community resilience in the face of challenges, cultivating a sense of belonging and mutual care, promoting intercultural understanding and respect, and supporting the efforts of communities and social movements working towards a more just, equitable, and liberated society for all. It understands, fundamentally, that individual well-being is inseparable from collective well-being and the health of our social fabric. Achieving this requires addressing the root causes of social problems – poverty, discrimination, lack of access, political disenfranchisement – not just designing aesthetically pleasing or functionally adequate solutions for their symptoms. It positions design not as a panacea, but as a potential tool, when wielded responsibly and ethically, for contributing to positive social transformation, guided by an unwavering ethical commitment to justice, dignity, equity, and liberation.

But let’s be absolutely clear, as architect Alejandro Aravena, Pritzker Prize laureate 2016, wisely noted in a different context, the final responsibility rests with us, the designers, even within collaborative processes. Within a cooperative approach that fosters co-creation, aiming for more symbiotic relationships between future recipients, the surrounding community, and the environment, the goal isn’t necessarily for the designer to find the solution alone. Perhaps more importantly, our role is to facilitate processes where the right questions emerge from the collective intelligence. Because, as Aravena suggests, there is perhaps nothing worse, nothing more wasteful or potentially harmful, than providing brilliant answers to the wrong questions. Ensuring we are asking the right questions, framed by justice and equity, is a core part of our social responsibility.

045 Economics – An Ethical Pursuit of Shared Prosperity, Needs Fulfillment, and Resilience

Now we arrive at Economics, often perceived as the most ‘hard-nosed’, pragmatic, and perhaps least ethically flexible domain impacting design. The Symbiotic Design Framework fundamentally challenges this perception. It refuses to treat Economics as a separate, value-neutral sphere governed by immutable, quasi-natural laws of supply and demand, or driven solely by the singular, often myopic, pursuit of profit maximization, market share, or abstract economic growth (like GDP). Instead, viewed through the primary, foundational lens of Ethics, Economics is reframed as a profoundly ethical endeavor. Its purpose, within this framework, shifts decisively towards the conscious creation of shared prosperity, the fostering of long-term social and ecological resilience, and the ensuring of equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and capabilities necessary for all beings to flourish and meet their fundamental needs with dignity.

This perspective starts by explicitly acknowledging a crucial truth often obscured by mainstream economic discourse: economic systems are not natural phenomena like gravity or weather patterns. They are powerful human constructs, intricate systems of rules, norms, institutions, technologies, and practices that are themselves “designed” – whether consciously and intentionally, or unconsciously through accumulated habits, historical legacies, and power dynamics. As “designed systems”, they can be redesigned. And because they have such profound impacts on human lives and planetary health, they must be intentionally designed, managed, governed, and constantly re-evaluated to align with, and be held accountable to, the broader ethical goals of human well-being (Social Responsibility) and environmental stewardship (Sustainability). This framework directly challenges the pervasive and dangerous ideology that economic considerations can somehow be ethically neutral or operate independently of their deep, complex, and often devastating social, cultural, and ecological consequences. Every decision made within an economic context – about business models, investment priorities, supply chain structures, labor practices, technological deployment, pricing strategies, ownership patterns, governance mechanisms – is inevitably laden with ethical implications and must be examined as such.

An ethical economic lens, therefore, prompts designers, organizations, policymakers, and citizens alike to consider the full spectrum of economic impacts, moving far beyond the narrow financial metrics like profit margins, shareholder value, or GDP growth that dominate conventional assessments. This necessitates developing methods and cultivating the will to account for the extensive, often long-term, social and environmental costs – things like pollution, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, community disruption and displacement, impacts on physical and mental health, erosion of social trust and cohesion, creation of precarious labor conditions, contribution to climate change – that are routinely externalized in conventional economic accounting. These costs are not eliminated; they are simply pushed onto others – often marginalized communities, future generations, and the non-human world – who did not consent and do not benefit. Recognizing and internalizing these externalities requires a fundamental shift in how we define and measure ‘value’ itself.

Furthermore, this ethical lens encourages and demands a decisive shift away from purely extractive or exploitative economic models. These models, often deeply rooted in colonial logics of resource appropriation, racialized hierarchies, and the domination of nature, treat both people (especially those deemed ‘other’) and the planet as disposable inputs, raw materials to be extracted and consumed for the purpose of wealth accumulation elsewhere, typically benefiting a small elite. Decolonial thinkers powerfully critique how these logics persist, often subtly, in contemporary global capitalism and are frequently embedded in dominant design paradigms and technological infrastructures. Similarly, critical perspectives emerging from the Global South raise urgent concerns about ongoing neocolonial dynamics, such as “data colonialism” (where vast amounts of data generated by populations are extracted and exploited by powerful multinational corporations, often without fair compensation, consent, or local control) and the perpetuation of exploitative labor conditions within complex global supply chains, including those underpinning the seemingly immaterial digital economy.

In stark contrast, ethical economics, as envisioned here, champions generative models. These are economic approaches that aim to create multiple forms of value and well-being – social, cultural, ecological, intellectual, spiritual, aesthetic, as well as financial – and ensure that this value circulates within communities, builds local capacity and democratic control, strengthens social relationships and trust, and actively regenerates resources rather than depleting them. Ron Eglash’s concept of “generative justice,” which I found particularly inspiring, connects directly to this idea. He advocates for valuing cultural heritage (like the sophisticated fractal mathematics embedded in African craft traditions we mentioned) not just aesthetically or anthropologically, but as a living source for community-based STEM education, innovation, and economic self-determination, generating new forms of value from heritage rather than simply extracting or preserving it passively.

Crucial insights for shaping such an ethical, generative economy are offered by Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef’s framework of Fundamental Human Needs. Max-Neef and his colleagues proposed a set of universal, finite, and classifiable human needs – Subsistence (food, shelter, work), Protection (care, safety, social security), Affection (love, friendship, intimacy), Understanding (critical consciousness, education, meaning), Participation (belonging, decision-making, rights), Leisure (relaxation, play, imagination), Creation (skills, invention, artistry), Identity (sense of self, belonging, history), and Freedom (autonomy, equality, dissent). He crucially distinguishes these fundamental needs (which are universal across cultures and history) from the diverse “satisfiers” that societies develop to meet them (which are culturally and contextually variable). Max-Neef observed that some satisfiers heavily promoted by dominant economic systems (e.g., relentless consumerism, arms races, invasive surveillance) can actually become “pseudo-satisfiers” or even “destroyers,” inhibiting the fulfillment of certain fundamental needs (e.g., undermining identity, affection, freedom, or protection) even while claiming to meet others (like subsistence through consumption).

From this powerful perspective, an ethical economy should be fundamentally oriented not towards maximizing production or consumption per se, but towards creating the diverse conditions, opportunities, and culturally appropriate “synergistic satisfiers” (those that meet multiple needs simultaneously) that allow these fundamental human needs to be met adequately, equitably, and sustainably for all members of society. This provides a concrete ethical benchmark against which economic policies, business models, and design interventions can be evaluated. Max-Neef’s related advocacy for “Human Scale Development” – prioritizing local self-reliance (at appropriate scales, not autarky), connection to local ecosystems, robust community participation, direct democracy, and the use of appropriate technologies for the direct satisfaction of fundamental needs – resonates strongly with the goals embedded within the Symbiotic Design Framework. These include supporting thriving local and regional economies, promoting fair labor practices that uphold dignity and provide living wages (aligned with ILO standards and critiques of exploitative labor), valuing diverse forms of capital beyond the purely financial (e.g., social capital, cultural capital, natural capital, intellectual capital), building community resilience against external economic or ecological shocks, and actively fostering non-exploitative, community-controlled economic alternatives like cooperatives, commons-based peer production, solidarity economy networks, and circular economy models grounded in justice. Design Justice principles also align strongly here, explicitly opposing exploitative economic practices and advocating for models that distribute wealth, knowledge, and power more equitably.

Ethical economics within the design process also demands rigorous attention to affordability and accessibility. If innovative solutions – whether sustainable technologies, health interventions, educational tools, or communication platforms – are designed, priced, or structured in ways that effectively exclude large segments of the population (due to cost, complexity, infrastructure requirements, cultural barriers, or language), they fundamentally fail the ethical test of serving the “Good for All” and risk exacerbating existing inequalities. This requires designers to innovate not only in form, function, and materials but also crucially in business models, distribution strategies, ownership structures, and value propositions. Exploring models like sliding scale pricing, tiered access based on need, community-supported subscription models, local production networks, open-source licensing, solidarity economy principles, designing for resource-constrained contexts (frugal innovation), and leveraging technology for equitable distribution become crucial aspects of ethical economic practice for designers.

Finally, embracing an ethical economic lens necessitates fundamentally challenging the hegemony of conventional metrics of success that dominate current policy and business thinking – primarily GDP growth, quarterly profits, market share, or shareholder value. These metrics, while potentially useful for specific narrow purposes, often fail spectacularly to capture genuine human well-being, social equity, ecological health, cultural vitality, or community resilience. Indeed, they can actively incentivize behaviors that are profoundly destructive to these deeper values (e.g., prioritizing short-term profit over long-term environmental stewardship or worker safety). Critical perspectives from the Global South, local communities, feminist economics, and ecological economics consistently critique the limitations, biases, and perverse incentives embedded within these capitalist-centric metrics. An ethical approach requires developing, prioritizing, and actively using alternative indicators that reflect what truly matters for collective flourishing: measures of well-being (like the Genuine Progress Indicator or Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness index), health outcomes and longevity, educational attainment and opportunities, social connection and trust, community resilience indices, biodiversity levels, resource equity and footprint analysis, measures of fundamental needs fulfillment across different demographics, levels of political participation and democratic health, and indicators of cultural vitality and diversity. Design has a crucial role to play not only in creating goods, services, and systems aligned with ethical economic principles but also in the challenging task of visualizing, communicating, and making tangible these alternative value systems and metrics of success, helping to shift public and institutional priorities.

046 Towards Conscientious, Liberatory, and Symbiotic Design Practice

So, where does this deep dive into the ethical underpinnings leave us? The Symbiotic Design Framework, by establishing Ethics – understood expansively as this ongoing, pluralistic pursuit of collective Eudaimonia, flourishing, and justice for all beings, critically informed by a diverse chorus of global perspectives and critical theories – as the non-negotiable foundational cornerstone guiding the interconnected domains of Sustainability, Social Responsibility, and Economics, offers, I hope, more than just another design methodology. It aims to provide a robust moral compass and a critical toolkit for designers striving to navigate the profound complexities, ambiguities, and responsibilities inherent in contemporary design practice. Grounded conceptually in ideals like flourishing and pragmatically in frameworks like Max-Neef’s Fundamental Human Needs, and crucially enriched by the vital insights emerging from historically marginalized yet profoundly insightful traditions, this framework provides a holistic lens. It’s a lens for rigorously evaluating design decisions at every stage and for guiding creative action towards more just and life-affirming ends. It seeks to ensure that the pursuit of innovation, functionality, aesthetics, usability, and even economic viability is always tempered, critically shaped, and ultimately judged by a profound sense of ethical responsibility, an unwavering commitment to justice, and a clear orientation towards collective liberation and ecological well-being.

This approach unequivocally acknowledges a truth that feels both sobering and empowering: design is never a value-neutral activity. It inevitably, inescapably shapes our world. It configures power relations. It distributes resources, often unfairly. It influences behavior and perception. It defines possibilities and imposes constraints. It impacts futures, both human and non-human. As such, every act of design carries inherent ethical weight and demands critical consciousness, humility, and deep care from its practitioners. Designers, whether we acknowledge it or not, wield significant power – the power to frame problems in certain ways, to include or exclude voices from the process, to materialize certain values while rendering others invisible, to shape experiences and perceptions, to create affordances for action or barriers to participation. And with that power comes an inescapable, profound responsibility to act conscientiously, transparently, accountably, and, I would argue, in solidarity with those communities and movements actively working towards a more just, equitable, and sustainable world.

Adopting this ethically grounded, pluralistic framework has significant, potentially transformative implications across the entire design ecosystem – from how we educate future designers to how organizations strategize and how practitioners engage with their work and communities:

Design Education: It calls for a fundamental shift, moving beyond curricula primarily focused on teaching technical skills, aesthetic trends, or the uncritical reproduction of dominant, often problematic, design paradigms. Education must integrate critical ethical reflection as a core competency. It needs to foster historical awareness of design’s complex legacy, including its frequent complicity in systems of oppression (colonialism, racism, sexism, ableism, ecological destruction). It must facilitate deep engagement with diverse ethical frameworks and knowledge systems from around the world, challenging biases. Crucially, it must cultivate not just skilled technicians but critically conscious, ethically courageous, relationally adept, and politically aware practitioners. This means fostering virtues like humility (recognizing the limits of one’s own knowledge and perspective), empathy (deeply understanding diverse experiences), reflexivity (critically examining one’s own assumptions and positionality), intellectual curiosity, collaborative capacity, and a lifelong commitment to learning and, most importantly, unlearning harmful assumptions and practices and recognizing we could be wrong.

Policy-Making and Organizational Strategy: If embraced seriously, this framework suggests radically different criteria for evaluating success, allocating resources, and guiding investment at organizational and societal levels. Policy and strategy should explicitly prioritize long-term collective well-being, the fulfillment of fundamental needs for all, procedural and distributive justice, ecological integrity, and community resilience over short-term economic gains, narrow efficiencies, shareholder primacy, or the pursuit of unsustainable growth. This involves embedding rigorous ethical impact assessments into decision-making processes, ensuring meaningful community participation and democratic accountability in governance structures, potentially divesting from industries or practices that cause demonstrable social or ecological harm, and actively investing in regenerative and equitable alternatives.

Professional Practice: For practitioners navigating the daily realities of design work, this framework offers a structured yet flexible way to approach complex, multi-stakeholder problems with greater ethical clarity and intentionality. It demands moving beyond mere adherence to minimal professional codes of conduct towards fostering a practice of conscientious innovation. This involves:

• Continuous critical reflection on one’s own positionality, privilege, power dynamics, and potential biases throughout the design process.
• Embracing roles that extend beyond the traditional ‘neutral expert’ or ‘service provider’ – acting at times as attentive facilitators, responsible stewards, critical advocates, thoughtful collaborators, and perhaps even principled activists, depending on the context.
• Prioritizing measurable positive impact on communities and ecosystems over mere novelty, aesthetic appeal, or short-term profit.
• Ethically and skillfully engaging in genuinely participatory and co-design processes that actively work to share power and build community capacity.
• Acting in solidarity with marginalized groups and social movements striving for justice and sustainability.
• Exercising careful stewardship over resources (materials, energy, data, attention), relationships (with clients, collaborators, communities, the environment), and the potential long-term consequences of one’s work.
• Crucially, developing the ethical clarity and courage to recognize when not to design, when to refuse harmful projects, or even when to design for refusal or resistance against unjust or unsustainable systems.

By placing Ethics – understood as this active, pluralistic, demanding pursuit of flourishing for all, grounded in justice, care, relationality, and profound respect for diverse ways of knowing and being – at the very heart of design, the Symbiotic Design Framework, constantly enriched and challenged by the vital contributions of historically marginalized yet profoundly insightful voices, aims for nothing less than a transformation of the discipline. The goal, I admit, is ambitious, perhaps even audacious, yet it feels increasingly necessary. It is to move design beyond making incremental improvements within flawed systems, beyond merely mitigating the harms it sometimes causes, towards actively, intentionally, and skillfully contributing to the collective cultivation of truly equitable, sustainable, pluriversal, resilient, and ultimately, more joyful and meaningful futures for all inhabitants – human and non-human – of our shared, fragile, beautiful planet. This isn’t a destination we reach, but an ongoing practice, a commitment requiring constant dialogue, critical humility, collective action, unwavering ethical vigilance, and the courage to imagine and actively design better worlds, together, within relationships striving for genuine symbiosis.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Richard Buckminster Fuller

References

Aristotle. (various editions). Nicomachean Ethics. (Reference specific edition/translator if needed).

Aravena, A. (2014). My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process [TED Talk]. TED.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_aravena_my_architectural_philosophy_bring_the_community_into_the_process

Bullard, R. D. (1993). Confronting environmental racism: Voices from the grassroots. South End Press.

Collins, P. H. (Conceptual Reference – e.g., 1990/2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge.

Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. The MIT Press.

Crenshaw, K. (Conceptual Reference – e.g., 1989, 1991). Key works include “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” & “Mapping the Margins”. University of Chicago Legal Forum / Stanford Law Review.

De La Torre, M. A. (Conceptual Reference – e.g., 2004, 2015). Representative works might include Doing Christian Ethics from the Margins or The Politics of Jesús. Orbis Books.

Design Justice Network. (n.d.). Design Justice Principles. Retrieved from https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles

Earth Charter International. (2000). The Earth Charter. Retrieved from https://earthcharter.org/read-the-charter/

Eglash, R. (1999). African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design. Rutgers University Press.

Elkington, J. (1997). Cannibals with forks: The triple bottom line of 21st century business. Capstone Publishing.

Escobar, A. (2018). Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds. Duke University Press.

Fry, T. (2009). Design futuring: Sustainability, ethics and new practice. Berg Publishers.

Fuller, R. B. (1969). Operating manual for spaceship earth. Southern Illinois University Press. (Implicitly referenced via Spaceship Earth concept).

Garland-Thomson, R. (Conceptual Reference – e.g., 1997, 2009). Representative works might include Extraordinary Bodies or Staring: How We Look. Oxford University Press.

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Harvard University Press.

Hall, C. C., & Hernandez, M. (Expected Publication Year). Antiracist by Design. (Title mentioned in original text, publication details pending).

Holmes-Miller, C. D. (1987). Black Designers: Missing in Action. Print Magazine. (Further bibliographic details might be needed).

International Labour Organization (ILO). (1998). ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/declaration/thedeclaration/textdeclaration/lang–en/index.htm

Jaggar, A. M. (Conceptual Reference – e.g., 1983). Representative works might include Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Rowman & Allanheld.

Max-Neef, M., Elizalde, A., & Hopenhayn, M. (1991). Human scale development: Conception, application and further reflections. Apex Press.

Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. University of California Press.

Papanek, V. (1971). Design for the real world: Human ecology and social change. Pantheon Books.

Sanders, E. B.-N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. CoDesign, 4(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710880701875966

The Center for Universal Design. (1997). The principles of universal design. NC State University.

Tronto, J. C. (1993). Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. Routledge.

United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

United Nations. (1992). Convention on Biological Diversity. Retrieved from https://www.cbd.int/convention/text/

United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. (Resolution A/RES/70/1). Retrieved from https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (2015). Paris Agreement. Retrieved from https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement

World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford University Press.

(Note: Conceptual references for CRT Scholars (Bell, Delgado, Stefancic), Other Decolonial Scholars (Mignolo, Quijano, Maldonado-Torres, Smith, Winschiers-Theophilus), Indigenous Scholars, Disability Justice Advocates, Latinx Practitioners (Guerra, Garcia), and Global South Scholars indicate areas where specific works could be cited based on the original text’s discussion, requiring further research for full citations if needed for academic purposes.)