Shifting Conversations for Sustainability Transitions Using Participatory Design Visioning

Abstract

Sustainability transitions require structural changes in society. There is a need for utilising new and established methods of futures inquiry. This paper presents how design visioning has been used to initiate, stimulate and shift stakeholder conversations in the Visions and Pathways 2040 project which aimed to develop innovation strategies and policies to achieve low-carbon, resilient futures in Australian cities. We recommend that teams working in sustainability transitions research should ideally have internal design capacity or, they regularly engage with outsourced design capacity throughout the project. Since it is not possible to directly engage all stakeholders in transition projects, the research teams should reflect on the extent of participation and the implications of this extent on the politics of the project on an ongoing and transparent way. We identified exploring the implications of thinking styles, professional backgrounds and organisational associations in visioning exercises as a future research direction.