Episode
Designing a better world....
- Published
- Jun 4, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2072
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Summary
In this episode of 50 Shades of Green, hosts Adam and Katie chat with Cecilia Brenner, Managing Director of Design for Good, about how design skills are being mobilized globally to tackle the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Design for Good is a global non-profit that convenes a global alliance of companies, design schools and NGOs to co-create open-source solutions for real community problems. Cecilia explains their two-year SDG cycles (past: clean water & sanitation; current: quality education; upcoming: people and planet health combining SDGs 3 & 13), and how local NGOs provide briefs and community access while volunteer designers form cross-functional task forces to prototype, validate and implement solutions. Key themes: Open-source approach: How alliance members waive IP so solutions can be adapted and scaled, shifting from ownership to shared impact. Practical impact: Learning about campaigns like a water-saving social media initiative which reached millions; Design practices: How they co-design with communities, systems thinking, life-centered and regenerative design, and treating climate impacts as design constraints rather than afterthoughts. Capacity-building: Updates of how a partnership with the Royal College of Art and the Design for Good Academy has trained over 1,200 designers to design for measurable impact, including sustainability and AI ethics topics. Scale and ambition: Find out how over 2,000 designers mobilized across 30 countries with a goal to improve 10 million lives and help regenerate the planet by 2030. You can find out more about Design for Good here: https://www.designforgood.org/ Fifty Shades of Green is produced by Climate Group North America and recorded in New York City. Climate Group is a non-profit with a global impact. You…