Systemic Design approach in policy-making for sustainable territorial development

Abstract

The era of transition that we are experiencing need a radical change also in the structure of society. This must be reflected in political commitment to find a new structure of rules able to facilitate participatory processes and to support initiatives than can bring social innovation. For this reason, cooperation between design, technology, economics and sociology is fundamental. As the society is currently undergoing a profound change it is necessary that the policies outcome from a commitment arising from a multidisciplinary team. An example of coordinated work between universities, local authorities, government offices, associations, public bodies is the RETRACE project (Systemic Approach for Transition towards a Circular Economy). RETRACE’s aim is to drive EU policies applying the SDA (Systemic Design Approach), which means by using the output of a system as an input of another system. Applying CE to define a strategy in order to look forward to a regional development allows to reach fundamental social benefits: “[..] the circular economy will offer a number of societal benefits for European countries not least in terms of carbon emissions reductions and job gains” (Wijkman, Skanberg, 2015).