About the project

The 2-SUSTAYNIA project (pronounced ‘to su-stay-nia’), should be understood as an urgently needed pre-project to bring us towards a more flourishing international design research domain of sustainability and ‘development’. Or in other words, it intends to underpin and reinforce what we at IDE are aiming for in our strategically established research domain ‘Sustaynia’ (see separate project description).

The main focus during 2013 is to facilitate a process that ultimately leads to a sustainable inter­national network of scholars being occupied with how design, as a professional discipline, can address climate change on a global scale. In this sense all countries are regarded as developing countries, where especially;

….so called “developed countries” probably need to ‘develop’ most and by that actually being the real ‘developing countries’. Being the group that, by far, has the hugest CO2 debt and having a lifestyle that’s not even close to being sustainable, they all have to implement some very radical changes.

….the most fast growing so called ‘developing countries’, like the BRICS, needs to address and (re)assess how their growths are achieved. Will they continue to do it the same way as the traditionally ‘develop countries’ above or in a more progressive and sustainable manner?

The one year pre-project that runs throughout 2013 builds on, and are made possible by, Professor Håkan Edeholt’s sabbatical leave during the same year. The goal is/was to reinforce and further develop a network of countries among both the groups above and then especially together with colleagues from the BIS (among the BRICS) countries i.e. Brazil, India and South Africa. Results so far is one funded project together with partners in South Africa and one that also include India and Brasil that still is under review (results scheduled to March 2014)