With the ever-growing development of technology, being able to innovate is the ultimate goal to create an advantage for organizations, regions and countries. Innovation enables the prosperous growth of communities all over the world, but not all regions are able to keep up. This thesis focuses on regions that have not benefitted fully from this innovative development. Fryslân, a northern province of the Netherlands, is an example of such a region. This research aims to explore the social constructs that block progress and help regions to enhance their innovative output.

To provide a holistic understanding of regional innovation systems, this research determines two consecutive paradoxes. Paradox 1 relates to the interdependency of social and technical processes within innovation systems. A comprehensive approach to innovation must consider social processes as a part of innovation, which makes understanding social constructs crucial. Social relationships form a significant part of social constructs, which are the enablers of the knowledge exchange that will lead towards an innovation ecosystem. Paradox 2 focuses on the contradictory set of relationships between actors. Social relationships among a group of individuals are commonly identified as networks and therefore, social network analysis (SNA) is an appropriate tool to study the social constructs that are relevant for innovation systems.

The analysis showed that the networks in Fryslân are compact and not open enough for external knowledge. In addition, the actors that are involved are weakly connected to each other. Although the strong friendship bonds play a role in the hampering closed-like social structure of the province, the least problematic network in Fryslân is the friendship network and, therefore, it must be utilized for the purpose of innovation. Friendship does not have a direct link to innovation, but the power of existing networks and the local dynamics makes the friendship network the best path towards innovative progress.

Growing unsustainable consumption in Vietnam is a pressing issue, especially in urban areas. The effects of rapid economic growth, industrialization and increasing wealth in combination with a young, growing population makes that the middle class of Vietnam is on the rise. This movement within the population is making room to form and introduce new consumption patterns; patterns that are both sustainable as well as adapted to the improving living standards.

This thesis points out that food is the most promising category to start building these new consumption patterns from. In Vietnam both consumers and producers are looking for ways to make their practices sustainable. Design can help building and giving form to new behaviour patterns, products and services. However, creating more trust and understanding between the Vietnamese food consumers and producers is essential. Co-design specifically could enable the creation of trust and understanding as well as create a learning environment; ultimately leading to a better adapted, more attractive and sustainable food system in Vietnam.

The dissertation ‘Making Fashion Sustainable – The Role of Designers’ describes the PhD research of Natascha M. van der Velden on the envisioned role designers could take responsibility for in the transition towards a more sustainable fashion industry.
The current worldwide textile and apparel system is unsustainable – from both an environmental as well as a social point of view. The clothing industry is associated with (un-)sustainability problems ranging from materials depletion and toxic emissions to social exploitation.
This thesis argues that knowledge about life cycle thinking and life cycle assessment (LCA, as a method to calculate ‘eco- and socio-burden’) could accelerate the transformation towards a more sustainable fashion production system. Therefore, designers are encouraged to include findings that result from the application of the LCA method, in the fashion design process, with the aim to gain insights into the sustainability hotspots over the clothing products lifecycle. This knowledge can help designers to apply ecodesign and create ‘Life Cycle Clothing’, and is intended to enhance the self-empowerment based learning and probing process of the designers, the makers and the wearers of fashion. It is envisaged, within the wider context of the national and international governance of the fashion branch sustainable development future, that (i) the analytical methods and ecodesign approaches from this study, together with (ii) the self-empowerment process, will be essential elements (even necessary conditions) for a successful transition.
The conclusions of the research suggest practical guidelines for designers who are willing to adopt a different role than many of their predecessors, and – possibly with help from the tranS-LCA-tor – become a frontrunner of sustainable fashion by adding quantitative sustainability assessment to their ‘portfolio of skills’.