What Design Can Do, in association with the IKEA Foundation, is asking designers to come up with a concept that will help us survive the future
On August 29, Mumbai received its heaviest rainfall in a day since July 26, 2005. With over 230 mm of rainfall lashing the city, life came to a standstill. A week prior to this incident, floods had wreaked havoc in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and our neighbouring country Nepal.
As this article is being written, Hurricane Irma approaches the Florida coast in the United States after causing death and destruction in the Caribbean and even parts of Europe. Notably, this is the second hurricane approaching the United States after Hurricane Harvey halted life in Texas.
One factor that binds all these incidents is climate change. A decade ago in India, monsoons used to be consistent between June and September. Now, it's 2-3 days of heavy rainfall each month and the lakes are overflowing. It’s been a distinct pattern the world over. Floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, polar ice-caps melting, species getting extinct and new species evolving are just part and parcel of evolution, but the rapidness at which these processes take place is due to climate change.
We can’t hope to prepare ourselves for climate change because it’s already here. We can’t end climate change because it’s an already existing phenomenon. What we can do is adapt to it. And while the Paris Accord is an integral step taken by world leaders to make a difference, it’s up to the people from around the world to step up as well.
Enter What Design Can Do (WDCD), a platform for the advancement of design as a tool for social change – in this case climate change. Teaming up with the IKEA Foundation, WDCD has launched The Climate Action Challenge where it invites participants from across the world to come up with unique, practical and sustainable design ideas that can help make a difference.
“Climate change is not just an environmental issue, but a global crisis. We can’t afford to wait for further destructive consequences before we call for action,” said Radu Dumitrascu, a spokesperson from the IKEA Foundation while speaking to DNA.
Dumitrascu added that while mitigation was essential, there needs to be a way to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. “It’s a two-step process. Firstly, we need to adapt to more frequent and intense natural disasters, as well as weather patterns that we’ve never had to cope with before. We also have to deal with the effects: food and water shortages, homelessness, ill health, mass migration, and conflict.
“Secondly, we need to adapt to a new energy reality. We depend on energy for our food and water supply, housing, clothing, medical care, and transportation — from the basics to relative luxuries. We have to change our ways in order to survive beyond the age of fossil fuels,” he explained.
The Competition
WDCD has launched a competition primarily encouraging start-ups, as well as school and college-going students to come up with ideas on how to tackle climate change.
“Climate change affects everything in our life, from our water to food, energy and housing. This challenge offers a unique way of choosing a brief: a generator,” explained Dumitrascu.
The generator gives you a step-by-step process on how to set up your design idea. First, choose how you want to tackle a problem (with what design strategy), and then what you want to tackle. Finally, indicate where you want to do it — and hey, presto, a customised brief is generated for you. To know more, click here.
The call to participation is open until 24 September 2017. Students, creative professionals and start-ups can submit their proposals and a pitch video through the challenge platform. Through this website participants have access to the ‘briefing generator’ and loads of background information on climate change adaptation. They also can profit from the feedback of the WDCD community.
The winners, selected and evaluated by an international jury, share an award package worth €900, which includes a production budget and a tailor-made acceleration programme aimed at making the winning ideas, prototypes or start-ups investment ready. When submitting a project, you must indicate which of the three tracks you want to participate in.
Case study
A South African start-up, Khepri Bioscience, processes abattoir and food waste using flies that subsequently are converted into low-cost feed proteins for cattle, substituting fishmeal and soya meal. Their unique design is one of the first entries for the challenge.
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