Experience has shown that fatigue of the mundane always takes fancy to creative ideas, howsoever small. Many such innovative ventures, be it an experimental school or a community bank, are conveniently put into 'game changing' category, with the hope that the world would be a better place should these get scaled up. It is another matter that the world is fast sinking into social, economic and political abyss, lacking moral and ethical courage to pull itself out of it. Will ripples caused by small initiatives turn the wave of destruction away? Moving from the corporate sector into the world of social entrepreneurs, Beverly Schwartz could only have been overwhelmed by it after meeting eighteen diverse social entrepreneurs from across the globe.
Combined with the depth of observations and analysis, Schwartz makes a compelling case for the need to build a supportive ecosystem for the system-changing ideas to bring about 'big picture' change. It means that the reach of small-scale innovation can only be expanded provided political and institutional capacities are conducive. Given the complex world we all live in, rarely does ecosystem allow fresh ideas to flourish. The odds are always stacked against 'change maker'.
At times, social entrepreneurs have been criticized for not acknowledging people as the drivers of change but for insisting upon ‘change’ to drive communities instead. The latter approach undermines local wisdom and traditional institutions at the cost of external intervention. Unless communities absorb the change, the change is unlikely to last long. It is here that social entrepreneurs have often got it wrong: far from being the catalysts of change they insist on themselves being the 'change'.
Despite being part of the Ashoka's global marketing team, Schwartz has tried to remain objective in her analysis. Predictably, she picked up successful social entrepreneurs whose ideas could withstand the test of success in the market. That successful social innovation must fit within the prevailing market structure is somewhat contentious. Far from being cure-all, markets have remained at the root of most ills affecting the society today. Unless social entrepreneurs succeed in creating ‘another world’, the ripples are quite unlikely to turn the tide....Link
Rippling
by Beverly Schwartz
Jossey-Bass, John Wiley Imprint, USA
269 pages, US $ 27.95
Rarely do present-day designs last - be it of a refrigerator, a washing machine, a laptop or a smart phone. Conversely, present-day designs are designed (not to last) to propel a consumptive pattern that is conducive for economic growth. In a world obsessed with ‘growth’, designers have been working overtime to churn out designs that can spurn profits, expand markets, reduce costs and increase sales. The relative cheapness of new designs entice a large population to fit into the clinical definition of ‘compulsive shopper’, oblivious of the fact that the lower prices do not include human and environmental costs.
Ann Thorpe, well known design strategist, provides intriguing insights to help the world transit from consumer-driven economic growth on to the path of sustainable consumption. Though she considers this book to be a 'work in progress', in reality it offers a contextualized toolkit for new generation of designers to research into the viability of ‘steady state’ economy.
'Our societal narratives about consumption need to change, argues Thorpe. Her book is loaded with interesting design innovations aimed at cutting down consumptive patterns in the developed world by a factor of 3-5, crucial to attain relative climate stability. Given the challenges of unsustainable economic growth, designers need to encounter the constraints of the real in search for scalable but sustainable solutions to practical problems. The idea of a ‘steady state economy’ may seem somewhat unreal but recent social activism across the world has prompted designers to play a role in weaving the status of well-being into experiences of daily life.
Thorpe cites working examples to prove that designers can indeed help slow the pace of consumerism by devising goods and spaces that offer alternative societal narratives about ownership and sharing. From barge-mountain floating swimming pool to lunar-resonant street light and from adaptive public reuse projects to parking-cum-temporary playground, there are range of design options that can not only confront economic growth but can build and strengthen social infrastructure for collective sharing and use. It is a book of the future, surely a 'brain-opener'....Link
Architecture & Design versus Consumerism
by Ann Thorpe
Earthscan, UK
242 pages, $39.95
