download the light brochure displayed above here (pdf)

THE PROJECT

The Creative Communities for Sustainable Lifestyles (CCSL) is an on-going project of research that deals with creativity and sustainable lifestyles. More precisely, it discusses the potentialities of collaborative everyday life creativity (the creative communities) in generating and diffusing new and more sustainable ways of living in the urban environments of the emerging countries (with a focus on Brazil, India and China).

Examples of these creative communities initiatives are: self-managed services for the care of children and the elderly; new forms of exchange and mutual help; alternative mobility systems; socialising initiatives to bring cities to life; networks linking consumers directly with producers, etc. (ANNEX 1 presents some real cases.
For more examples see on CASES ).CCSL intention is to compare some European experiences with the ones that can be observed in the growing urban populations of the emerging countries. In particular, three major topics are considered: (1) the nature of the groups of people who generate these innovations (the creative communities); (2) their role in promoting new and sustainable lifestyles (the promising cases) and (3) the possibility to make these promising cases more accessible, effective and replicable, thanks to some appropriate initiatives (the enabling system).

The project is part of the Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles, within the United Nations 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, usually called Marrakech Process.

Its total duration is 12 months, and it is started in October 2006.

QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES

- Considering the creative communities in different countries: what are the similarities and differences between them? In particular: what Europe can learn from the emerging countries, and vice versa?

- Considering the creative communities in the emerging countries: do these cases indicate the direction for sustainable lifestyles? In particular: do they indicate sustainable lifestyles for the emerging countries growing urban population?

- Considering the creative as successful cases of grass roots innovation: how have they been improved and replicated? What kind of specific initiatives have been promoted?

- Considering the cases improvement and replication issues: could the communication and design capabilities that have been applied in some European cases be usefully adopted to the emerging countries contexts?

Given these main research questions the CCSL objectives are:

- To better understand the previously presented CCSL working hypotheses and topics, verifying their consistency and implications.

- To make the cases of creative communities clearer and effectively communicable.

- To build a first network of organisations and institutions interested to promote collaborative creativity for sustainable lifestyles.

These topics will be discussed involving local organisations (NGOs, institutions and associations) in China, India and Brazil.

It has to be kept in account that the CCSL project is a relatively “light” initiative that, if successful, has to create the preconditions for a future, more articulated programme of research and action on these same topics.

ACTORS

The Creative Communities for Sustainable Lifestyles (CCSL) project is supported by the Swedish Ministry for Sustainable Development in the framework of the Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles within the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, usually called Marrakech Process.

The Marrakech Process is lead by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).

CCSL is coordinated by DIS-Indaco Politecnico di Milano in Italy and by Strategic Design Scenarios (SDS), in Belgium, with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) as main partner. In a further stage of the project, local partners will be defined in Brazil, India and China.

BACKGROUND

The 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, usually called Marrakech Process, is a programme led by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). Its aim is to catalyze and guide the transition to a more sustainable global economy.
Within the Marrakech Process, the Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles is an initiative supported by the Swedish Ministry for Sustainable Development. Its specific goal is to develop and implement sustainable policies to change consumer behaviour and to promote more sustainable lifestyles.

In this framework, the Creative Communities for Sustainable Lifestyles (CCSL) project has been established to build on the results of a recently concluded European research called Emerging User Demands for Sustainable Solutions (EMUDE). This research had been funded by the European Commission 6th Framework Programme. Its main aim was to explore the potential of grass roots innovation and pinpoint emerging patterns of sustainable living.
With reference to Europe, EMUDE identified a large number of promising cases and, on this basis, developed a set of conceptual tools to deal with them, to orient policy makers and to define research and design guidelines in order to promote their consolidation and diffusion.

The EMUDE results have been integrated in the Sustainable Everyday Project (SEP): a web platform dedicated to sustainable social innovation in everyday life, with an open database of promising innovation cases. For more of them, see CASES

COLOPHON
The Creative Communities for Sustainable Lifestyles (CCSL) project is supported by the Swedish Ministry for Sustainable Development in the framework of the Task Force on Sustainable Lifestyles within the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, usually called Marrakech Process.
The Marrakech Process is lead by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).
CCSL is coordinated by DIS-Indaco Politecnico di Milano in Italy and by Strategic Design Scenarios (SDS), in Belgium, with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) as main partner. In a further stage of the project, local partners will be defined in Brazil, India and China.

VISIT THE CATALOGUE OF CCSL CASES

DOWNLOAD THE IN DEPTH BROCHURE HERE

Index of the indepth brochure

PRESENTATION
CCSL in short
6 CATALOGUE IN PROGRESS
Selected cases of creative communities
43 LOCAL WORKSHOPS
Work organisation and local partners’ roles
47 CCSL BACKGROUND DOCUMENT 1
Creative communities and sustainable lifestyles. The European experience
54 CCSL BACKGROUND DOCUMENT 2
Creative communities and sustainable lifestyles. The emerging countries experience

In addition to this work, Design Exercises were conducted in Ahmedabad, Guangzhou and Rio in order to discuss the promising cases found and see how would young design students would interpret creative communities and how they would adapt them to local context, taking in consideration cultural, social and economic local aspects.

STUDENT’S SOLUTIONS

18 photo stories -6 from each country- were created by the students in order to catch a glimpse of how their everyday life could be more sustainable… The stories refer to 3 main topics: New food networks, Community housing and Neighbourhood care; all of them re-interpreted and adapted to see how would they be inserted in their local context…

Thanks to the students that collaborated at this project!

India
_Students at National Institute of Design (NID) Ahmedabad, India
Adel Anwar, Ameya Nabar, Jitendra Singh Rajput, Ketakee Patankar, Mekhala Vaze, Pooja Aman Dubey, Krishna Anand,Pankaj Sehjowalia, Apurba Pawar , Chandradhar Singh Rathore Anju Gupta, Peter Sunil Tyagi, Shweta Wani, Varun Ahir, Vazir Nadaph Sachin Ravindran, Nayaab Lokhandwala, Neelam Singh, Prachi Garg, Nidhi Rajora Srikar, Sachita Agarwala, Sujata Sanke, Ajit Dandekar, Shweta Chaudhary, Saurabh Kumar
Coordination at NID: Prof. Shashank Mehta

Brazil
_Students at Federal University Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) Bruna Madureira, Luiz Penha, Azucena Garcia, Beany Monteiro, Elisa Spampinato, Luiza Farnese, Luis Felipe Maia, Petra Nery, Marcos Langenbach

Coordination at UFRJ: Laboratory of Technology and Social Development (LTDS)
COPPE – Production Engineering Programme (the CCSL experience have consolidated a new research unit in UFRJ – LTDS/DESIS: http://www.ltds.ufrj.br/desis/english)
_Students at Design School Unisinos University, Porto Alegre
Gustavo Borba, Paulo Belo, Fabio Parode, Carlo Franzato Francisco Lima, Camila Joner, Mí´nica Rizzi, Selene Sanmartin Christian Schonhofen Faria, Filipe Campelo, Thais Dalcin, Carla Volkart , Flávio Veloso, Augusta Medeiros, Liane Kreitchmann, Maurí­cio Andrade, Clarice Castro Debiagi, Roberto Galisai, Luiza Cini, Carlos Kessler

Coordination at UNISINOS: Paulo Edison Belo Reyes, Gustavo Severo de Borba e Karine de Mello Freire.

China

_Students at GAFA Guangzhou academy of Fine Arts.
Shen Ting, Yin Jun, Zou Yu Qing, Chen Guo Xing
Min Bin, Hu Nazhen, Yao Shanmei, Lin Jan

Coordination at GAFA: Profs. Huiming Tong, Shu Feng, Xiong Ding
If someone is missing, please let us know sending a mail to editor[at]solutioning-design.net
(change [at] in @)

USERS

After each country’s exercise was completed, two persons -not linked to the seminars or exercises- were invited to see a presentation of each group’s envisioned solution and to further comment of what they heard and saw and applying it to everyday life.

Click below to see what they think about these solutions….

DRAFT

The Localized Solution’s Draft was made to facilitate the choice of service aspects they wanted to portray in a set of enabling cards that cover the different aspects of a collaborative service. Each group was given a set of enabling cards that portrayed the main aspects of a meta-solution. They used these elements to organize their own solution and which specific aspects they portray. You can find more about the cards in the workshop section.

Click on the images to see how the students describe their solutions…

WORKSHOP
Each workshop followed the same work method, elements and organization. In this section, you can revise how and what the students did.
Enabling Cards

These Cards dedicated to three sector collaborative solutions -Food networks, Neighborhood Care and Community Housing- enabled the students to choose features of these services in order to interpret them into their own culture answering the change of context elements in the transfer. These cards then were organized to explain their solution organized, concluded & recorded in the DRAFT version of the service.

Click on the cards to get a closer look….

Take a look of what was the work plan here below.

Jacques du Toit
Cape Town municipality, Environment Resources Management
Cape Town, SA

Mugendi K. M’Rithaa
Department of Industrial Design, Faculty of Informatics & Design, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Cape Town, SA

Thierry-Alban Revert
South African Council for Organic Development and Sustainability (SACODAS)
Pretoria, SA

David Christer
Architect and Eco-designer, Eco-Forum; Centre for Appropriate Technology- South Africa (CATSA)
Johannesburg, SA

Jacques du Toit
Cape Town municipality, Environment Resources Management
Cape Town, SA

Mugendi K. M’Rithaa
Department of Industrial Design, Faculty of Informatics & Design, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Cape Town, SA

It will be based on two appointments:

- the Design Exercise with the students, where they will be asked to reflect, analyse and re-think the cases of Creative Communities they found in their previous research work;

- the Expert Seminar with researchers, designers, professors and NGOs representatives, where a discussion, starting from the cases that have been found, will try to outline their common characteristics, their sustainability potential and their possible improvement.

Click on the images below to hear about some of the cases that will be analysed and discussed in the workshop.

• Cases collected at 260109 (CPUT + African cases from the Internet) : download pdf (1,4 Mo)…
• Presentation of the Design Exercise: download pdf (6,1 Mo)…
• Presentation of the Design Exercise: download ppt (10,3 Mo)…
• Collection of cases for initial discussion: download pdf (4,4 Mo)…
• CCSL Africa Light Format: download doc (112 Ko)…
• CCSL Africa Interview Guide: download doc (112 Ko)…
• CCSL Africa Picture Check-list: download doc (108 Ko)…
• CCSL Africa Consent Agreement: download doc (108 Ko)…
• CCSL Africa In-depth Format: download doc (116 Ko)…
• CCSL Africa Visualisation template: download ppt (192 Ko)…

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