First and foremost, I believe the author of “Design is the Problem” is right: none of the frameworks are inherently bad, and they do quite well when combined. This combination of ideologies is why I think that the Sustainability Helix is one of the better (I don’t like saying “best”) frameworks out there. Pros I noticed are:
- Focus on society, the environment, AND markets
- Clear stages that (to me) resemble the Design Thinking framework
- The existence of an actual endgame
There are many other pros (and some cons) that I won’t get into, as I’d like to focus on the three aforementioned traits above.
First, I noticed that many of the other frameworks didn’t cover a “social” or societal sphere, which I think is a mistake since societal cues will influence human behavior and lead to change. What the SH does particularly well is that it gives clear segmentation of each sphere that makes sense in a business context. As a CEO, if someone told me to create a sustainable workplace, I’d have no idea what to do. But, if I’m told to focus on partnerships and company culture, I’d have a much better idea of what to do and at least know who to talk to. It’s also really important to recognize where people and the environment and the buying and selling of things all intersect. Especially with the way its drawn out, the SH does a good ob of laying this out.
6 categories and spheres aside, I think what might be the coolest to me about the helix isn’t the play on bio mimicry (although, neat) but the naming of the stages. Maybe it’s from thinking about it almost every day, but the idea of going from exploration (discovery) to experimentation (ideation and prototyping) to leadership and restoration (evaluation) seems very similar to the design process in general, not just Design Thinking. Either way, I think that including the experimentation and exploration as different stages is crucial: as humans, we haven’t done this before. Every year is going to be a new step.
While I believe in an iterative process, I am glad that at least the SH recognizes that at the end of the day, restoration is the end game. Right now we need to minimize damage; down the road, maybe we’ll get to the point where we can restore more than we hurt in the first place. While I think that general goal setting needs to be updated from time to time, those goals are leading up to a bigger picture and if trying to un-inflict the pain we’ve caused on our environment and society isn’t the bigger picture, I’m not sure what should be.