Going for gold • 5
Inspired by an article in Harvard Business Review about the underlying quests for corporate transformation (Anand & Barsoux, 2017), I have identified seven arenas where the power of service design can transform organizations, teams, and people. In this blog post, I explore Service Design for Ethical Circularity.
5. Service Design for Ethical Circularity
Purpose: Crafting approaches, strategies, services, processes, and tools to tackle social and environmental challenges in our world. This can be achieved by integrating systems thinking and circular design principles with behavioral design and strong ethical considerations.
Common themes: System boundaries, dynamics, interventions, and change. Ecological footprint. Life cycle thinking for products, services, and experiences. Upstream and downstream impact. Circular economy with sustainable and circular design strategies. Cognitive and behavioral science for sustainable habits, behaviors, and practices. Cultural, regional, and contextual sensitivity. Ethics and ethical conduct. Social equity. Human rights and working conditions. Diversity, equity, and inclusion. Fair trade practices. Economic viability – without exploiting people or depleting natural resources. Sustainable / circular business models. End-to-end transparency and accountability. Climate resilience and adaptability. Decarbonization. Regulatory and policy frameworks. Purpose-driven change and changemakers. Robust metrics, measurement tools, and dashboards to assess the relative effectiveness and performance of sustainability/circular initiatives.
Project archetypes:
Designing circular service systems. Developing service production and delivery systems based on circular economy principles to minimize environmental impact and build climate resilience across infrastructures, processes, workflows, touchpoints, and assets. This involves decarbonising operations, services, and assets, while promoting environmental responsibility and social governance across a wide range of suppliers, all without sacrificing service productivity or quality. Additionally, embedding circular properties into all touchpoints and assets across end-to-end customer experiences optimises resource use, eliminates waste, and encourages reuse, repurposing, and recycling.
Designing circular business models. Rethinking business models for circularity – such as product-as-a-service, sharing platforms, and take-back programs – to create new revenue streams, drive efficiencies, promote sustainability, and decrease the environmental footprint. This approach extends beyond developing new revenue models to also crafting fit-for-purpose service processes, orchestrating seamless stakeholder experiences, and designing intuitive consumer-facing channels and touchpoints.
Designing circular loops. Designing or redesigning feedback loops in a circular economy to reduce waste, extend product lifecycles, and promote reuse. This involves developing desirable and effective systems, services, and experiences for maintenance, refurbishment, repair, upgrading, repurposing, upcycling, redistribution, remanufacturing, and recycling.
Designing for circular mindsets & behaviors. Encouraging the adoption of circular mindsets, principles, and rituals in daily life through consumer-centric initiatives and interventions. This includes developing educational campaigns, interactive experiences, incentive schemes, actionable dashboards, and practical tools that inspire individuals, households, and communities to integrate circular practices into their everyday routines.
Fostering culture of ethical circularity. Instilling circular mindsets, principles, and rituals in the workplace through organization-wide initiatives and interventions. This involves developing strategic frameworks, training programs, incentive schemes, hands-on playbooks, actionable dashboards, and practical tools to integrate circular and ethical principles into all aspects of operations and teamwork.
Note: Eliminating waste from service creation, production, and delivery is a key focus of the Service Design for Operational Excellence arena. For more details, check out my blog post Going for gold • 4.
Complementary methodologies and toolkits: Systems thinking. Life cycle thinking. Disruptive design. Design for sustainability and circular economy. Nudge theory and behavioral change. DEI design. Theory of Change. Storytelling.
Supplementary methodologies and toolkits: Design thinking. Human-centered design. Process design. Business model innovation. Knowledge management. Change management.
Exploring the problem space: Understanding the broader context. Mapping and assessing systems, value chains, and lifecycles. Identifying stakeholder motivations and barriers. Evaluating the fairness and ethical implications of current practices. Analyzing existing policies and regulations. Framing opportunity spaces for improvement / intervention. Determining ambition levels. Establishing objectives, defining KPIs, and setting baselines. Crafting tentative North Star. Designing provocations to challenge assumptions, provoke reactions, and stimulate discussions. Framing or reframing challenges / problems. Etc.
Exploring the solution space: Generating, screening, and prioritising ideas / interventions for systemic and behavioral change. Continuously developing, testing, and adapting tentative solutions through storytelling, rapid prototyping, experimentation, simulation, and piloting. Defining stakeholder and business impact. Crafting compelling stories and value cases for change. Identifying roadblocks, creating roadmaps, defining requirements, and mobilising resources for implementation and sustained success. Establishing a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Etc.
Project sponsors: Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), SVP Sustainability, COO, CHRO, CEO, or equivalent
Desired outcomes: ↑ ethical conduct, ↑ compliance (with environmental and social regulations), ↑ resource efficiency, ↓ organizational waste, ↓ environmental impact, ↑ resilience and adaptability, ↑ employee engagement, ↑ customer engagement, ↑ brand reputation, ↑ core innovation, ↑ transformational innovation, ↑ organizational learning
For an introduction to systems thinking and disruptive design applied to sustainability and purpose-driven change, check out Richmond (n.d.), Acaroglu (2017), and The Unschool of Disruptive Design (2024).
Note: Thank you, Glyn Griffiths, sustainability expert at PA Dublin, for serving as such a valuable sounding board for this blog post. Any mistakes or shortcomings in the final piece are entirely my responsibility.
Service Design for Organizational Change will be covered in the next blog post.
References
Acaroglu, L. (2017). Tools for systems thinkers: The 6 fundamental concepts of systems thinking. Medium.
Anand, N. & Barsoux, J-L. (2017, Nov–Dec). What everyone gets wrong about change management. Poor execution is only part of the problem. Harvard Business Review.
Richmond, B. (n.d.). The thinking in systems thinking: Eight critical skills. The Systems Thinker.
The Unschool of Disruptive Design. (2024). Upskill with the Unschool.
