Responsible Design Thinking for Sustainable Development: Critical Literature Review, New Conceptual Framework, and Research Agenda

In the 1960s, influential thinkers defined design as a rational problem-solving approach to deal with the challenges of sustainable human development. In 2009, a design consultant and a business academic selected some of these ideas and successfully branded them with the term “design thinking.” As a result, design thinking has developed into...

Greentom Nova: the next sustainable child buggy

The goal of this project is to develop a concept for the next generation of Greentom products that is more sustainable than their current product line by applying Circular Economy. The result will be a child buggy, which is optimised to be produced, assembled, re-used, repaired, refurbished and recycled in Europe by Greentom. In other words: can...

Big Data Visualization and Context Management

This thesis explores different perspectives on the added value of data and data visualizations in context management practices and argues that organizations can have a valuable role in the space between bottom-up and top-down approaches, as individuals’ lack of control over a context becomes an opportunity for encouragement of a sense of...

The design of a sustainable and maintenance friendly wind turbine nacelle for DOT

Conventional offshore wind turbines tend to be difficult to maintain. Maintenance contributes to 25% of the total cost of energy and forms an important phase in the lifecycle of the turbine and has a significant impact on its sustainability. The design resulted from this master thesis is a nacelle for the DOT wind turbine. It creates a working...

Designing Circular Cities: Exploring the development of circular economy in cities

Urban policymakers face more complex issues than ever before in developing a socially-, economically- and environmentally sustainable cities. Some cities have already started transitioning towards a circular economy in this endeavor. This research explores the ways in which four pioneering cities have started navigating this transition, and uses...

Stimulating the separation of food waste among visitors

THANKS: A tool for Corporate Social Responsibility

Thanks is a service based on a smartphone application, which enables companies to step up with corporate social responsibility (CSR) by reducing energy consumption in their office buildings while supporting one NGO working for environmental protection and conservation.

Implications of Social Practice Theory for Sustainable Design

Sustainable design faces challenges at a scale and level of complexity that are ill at ease with design’s mainstream focus on products and users. Recently, social practice theory has been suggested as a promising theoretical framework to inform new ways of designing. In social practice theory, practices – socially shared entities such as...

Building a better Cittaslow: Bringing the Slow City to its Inhabitants

This master thesis takes a look at the Slow City applications in Turkey - a top-down international certification organization based on sustainable development for towns, and how to bring it down to the level of their locals, making the concept socially more sustainable (as opposed to depending on the policies of the administration). The thesis...

How to use Slow Design to make products more sustainable?

Slow Design is a design philosophy that aims at supporting well-being for individuals, society, and the natural environment. It encourages people in doing things at the right time and with the right speed and helps them to understand and reflect on their actions. Nevertheless, how can this philosophy be used to create mass-produced consumer...

Textiles4Life: Design of disaster relief equipment with discarded textiles

The thesis explores the potential of recycling textiles to be used as a solution for disaster relief in winter areas. The followed process is a systematic method where the required areas are researched, to finally achieve three potential solutions. The firs solution is a scarf with a hood sewed into it. It can be wrapped around the neck, and it...

Fulfilling Brand Aspirations with Sustainability - Bruynzeel Home Products

Introduction The central question in this report is: How can Bruynzeel successfully integrate sustainability in its business? Sustainability is generally getting more attention and Bruynzeel’s customers (DIY-chains and expert-dealers) sometimes take inventory of sustainable products or start other sustainable initiatives. Bruynzeel now wants to...

A Cradle-To-Cradle Picnic experience for Ameland and the other Cradle-to-Cradle islands

During this graduation project a sustainable activity for the C2C-Islands was researched and designed, with Ameland as main context. It was chosen to develop a C2C picnic set, because this matches the current activities (mainly outdoor) that are undertaken and possibilities that are available (local foods and excellent picnic facilities). The...

An application as a platform for a Street of the Future

Creating a platform to inspire collaboration and communicate sustainable solutions in a sustainable street called the Street of the Future.

Bottom-up transition into energy efficient housing

The housing stock in the Netherlands is not up to date when it comes to the energy ambitions of the government. The covenant Meer met Minder urges for the CO2 reduction of 30% in the built environment in between 2008 and 2020. This means that 2,4 million buildings in the country have to be energy renovated within a set time limit. Housing...

The Integration of Sustainability in the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation within the context of SMEs

By covering the literature related to innovation processes, new value creation and sustainable innovation, the literature review conducted for this thesis highlights that the integration of sustainability issues in the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation (FFE) is an ill-addressed area in scientific literature. To tackle the problem, the research...

Awareness Creation for the Carbon Policy among Employees

This graduation project has been performed at AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals in order to attain the Master of Science degree at the Faculty Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology. In this executive summery an overview of the most important information is given. AkzoNobel Industrial Chemicals consists of a managerial...

Sustainable automotive retailer of the future

This master thesis is about the car retail industry of the Netherlands. The goal of this master thesis is to adjust the decision making process of consumers that are buying a car in a way that sustainability, new developments and an improved vision on mobility is taking into account. The current retail channel does not meet the needs of today's...