Experimenting with “Value through less“
The documentation of the 1st Sustainable Summer School for young design students from all over the world is now available. The 2nd Sustainable Summer School is in preparation.
The positive feedback of the participants bears fruit: As a result of the successful 1st Sustainable Summer School 2009, the organisers are now looking forward to receiving applications from national and international design students. At the end of August 2010, creative ideas for a sustainable design of our daily life will be in the spotlight in the by now 2nd Sustainable Summer School. This year’s topic is "Societies, Systems and Swarms". (For applications and more information see www.designwalks.org)
The Summer School was initiated by Brigitte Wolf, from the University of Wuppertal, and Christa Liedtke, from the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. A network jointly realising the Summer School’s programme has since been built with partners like the Folkwang University of the Arts, ecosign, the University of Lucerne, Switzerland and the UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production.
While the organisers are preparing this year’s summer school, the results of 2009 are now available online at www.designwalks.org. In just a few days of intensive collaboration a whole range of creative ideas was developed according to the motto “Value through less”. Students primarily focused on decreasing the resource-intensity of products and services, such as by highlighting the quality of services that provide use versus actually owning a product. The elaborated concepts, ranging from “Community for More”, to “Slow Shopping – Meaningful Experiences and Relationships” to a “Soop Wareshare”, are stand-alones but can be considered as pieces of the bigger picture of inspiring “Sustainable Lifestyles“.
The English documentation includes articles of the organisers as well as of speakers such as Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek, President of the Faktor 10 Institute, and Michael Radau, CEO of the SuperBioMarkt AG. These are complemented by various pictures of the participants and by a manifesto, authored by the participants of the Summer School, describing the spirit and the values shared:
Dematerialize: create attractive lifestyles with less resource consumption.
Rethink existing systems and develop new ones.
Change the cultural attitude. Be aware of patterns.
Reshape markets and influence politicians by your individual choices.
Share your stuff.
Make it cool to be green.
Develop media-partnerships to raise awareness.
Cherish cultural diversity – it is a precious resource.
Consider people’s health.
Understand the “real price“ of products and services. The use of nature has its price
