Of all disciplines charged with the goal of sustainability, design offers the most compelling methodology. As an inherently multi-disciplinary practice, design can modify isolated parts of a system to influence the behavior of the whole, and as a result provide the critical intervention mechanism needed to shift any complex system towards sustainability. Traditionally, business has viewed design as a product-driven process, investing in it only when it yields positive ROI. But it is when design has been applied as a framework to create systems-based solutions that it has led to substantive returns for business. One such framework, known as lean design, shifted businesses toward less waste and higher productivity. As an early precursor of "green design," lean emphasized energy

"Problems cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them." - Albert Einstein Sustainability is the elephant in the boardroom. Businesses continue to ignore it in practice, even as they acknowledge the need for a sustainable future. Is the issue simply too large to fathom or is it so pervasive as to be invisible like the air we breathe? Or are sustainability's accounting standards such a threat to our short-term gains, that we push it into the future where we can agree in principle without acting today. How do we resolve this glaring contradiction between urgency and complacency? Surprisingly, business makes a good metaphor for sustainability. Like sustainability, it needs to maximize efficiencies among finite resources, strive for long-term viability,

Author, teacher, consultant and "experience design" pioneer Nathan Shedroff discusses the roles designers can and should play in bringing sustainability to their practice.