Design Thinking for Sustainability: A Case Study of a Research Project between Hennes & Mauritz and Textiles Environment Design

In this paper we fuse design thinking and the sociology of translation, particularly Callon's four moments of translation (1986), creating an analytical framework to explore organizational barriers to change towards sustainability in the textile and fashion industry. Drawing on design thinking we propose to add a fifth moment to Callon's framework to highlight the value of iterations or 'overlaps' (Callon, 1986) in processes of change. The paper, which is co-written by a textile design researcher and a PhD student with a background in cultural studies, is based on a case study of a workshop series developed and delivered by Textiles Environment Design (TED) at Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). Based on an analysis and discussion of the workshop series, we argue that design thinking, especially through its use of design tools, has the potential to make the challenges and opportunities related to processes of sustainability change tangible and thus more actionable at individual and organizational level. We further argue that the framework established could facilitate a more nuanced understanding of organizational barriers to change towards sustainability and also bestow the field of design thinking with additional analytical concepts to explore its methods and communicate its potential value to processes of change.

• http://www.textiletoolbox.com
• http://www.mistrafuturefashion.com