Exnovation, Toolkit, Divestment strategies, Phase out design, Climate engagement

A Toolkit for Exnovation by Design

The man-made climate crisis has reached a point where sustainable innovation alone is no longer enough. To really save resources and to reduce waste, designers must avoid creating new products but fight existing unsustainable consumption and production patterns. The Exnovation Toolkit offers strategies to reduce or eliminate the unsustainable and sensitizes designers to be less harmful.

Researcher:

Bastian Reichhardt

Design methodologies:

Design for interaction
Pursuasive Design
Customer Behavior

Project type: Master Project

Domain: Design for sustainability

2022

Challenge

With noticeably mounting indications for climate change the fatal consequences of human activities become more and more apparent. The majority of our everyday life products hold their share in the pollution of the environment by unearthing resources, processing, transporting, use and disposal. Now, production and consumption must change as quickly as possible to prevent the worst effects of the ecological crisis and to keep the earth habitable in the future.

I saw the ecological crisis as a warning for designers not to keep creating new (more sustainable) things, but to clean up the unsustainable ones.
Bastian Reichhardt

Result

This graduation project aimed at exploring exnovation efforts in context of design. The initial research phase focused on how designers can facilitate the exnovation of products in the most harmless way possible. The second phase was an investigation of a real exnovation case. The removal of the charging adapter from the Apple iPhone box served as subject of an analysis. The final outcome is an online toolkit for designers. It walks the user through various factors to consider when exnovating a product. After the user answers a set of questions, the most suitable exnovation strategies are presented. These strategies emphasize design possibilities, considerations and give tips. In this way it does not only sensitize designers about the topic in general, but also inspire further steps for the particular product exnovation.