In a world threatened by global concerns including terrorism, disease, climate change and the depletion of nature’s limited resources, design professionals have become deeply embedded in the search for solutions for the future of a sustainable world. On one hand, this statement may evoke doom and gloom; however, this is the current context for the evolution of innovative career paths, new businesses and entrepreneurial approaches.

It is 20 years since I read the following comment in The New York Times about predictions for future careers: “In 1989, 80 percent of children currently in grade five will go into jobs created using technologies not yet designed.” Today, many of the new and emerging technologies are a response to sustainable design, particularly through clean technologies demanded across all dimensions of society. No matter what your chosen design field, be it an urban designer, landscape architect, graphic designer or interior designer, the principles of sustainability are providing exciting and entrepreneurial careers as well as financial reward.

The space between current practice and future solutions is the place for new and emerging career opportunities. Career paths are being created by design professionals, especially as creativity and carbon intolerance now seem to go hand in hand as the most important business resource and opportunity for innovation.

What makes me so sure? No matter what I read or listen to currently, the vision for now, and for the future, is based upon urban, economic and environmental ecosystems where sustainability literacy and practice is critical. Innovation-based on clean technologies is the key driver in this decade. This is the era of clean technology where the urgency is of planetary proportion, and the opportunities for creativity and innovation via new professional roles has arrived.

Attracting attention
If you are in the process of applying for a job, then pay careful attention to the preparation of the application process. Your curriculum vitae, résumé or bio needs to attract attention, and tell your story economically while pushing the sustainability buttons. Most design professionals are emerging from tertiary institutions where being green and understanding the fundamental principles of sustainable design are part of their lexicon. Make sure that you clearly document your understanding of sustainability as a driver, and principles including such dimensions as: preservation and restoration of natural capital, de-carbonising and de-materialising the economy and life cycle systems including asset recovery.

There are thousands of businesses that know they need to do something about sustainability, but they don’t know where to begin. Invite them to start with you. Take the product packaging industry for instance.

Wrapped up!
The challenges here are mind blowing, so use your training and capture the attention of potential employers by demonstrating the benefits of sustainable practices. Currently discussion, debate and policy development around the use of plastic and excessive product packaging, plus the impact on landfill, are both widespread and heated.

Baby boomers come from an era of extraordinary contrasts where as children they would have taken their own saucepans to the local Chinese restaurant to collect their Friday night takeaway. Baby boomers lived without plastics bags, shrink-wrap and the multiple layering of today’s packaging. The idea of wrapping your travel luggage in plastic prior to departure would have been just comical.

Now it’s your turn as the ‘green generation’ to help us replace the unsustainable and create new sustainable behaviours. The opportunities to create new ways of doing everyday things are exponential.

Not every employer is ready for dynamic and vibrant young employees who understand the urgency of countering the human acceleration of climate change, but don’t be put off. Get the job, make a start and gradually demonstrate your expertise and let your creativity win over the company culture and core business.

Thinking outside the polygon
New career opportunities today are being created by ‘thinking outside the polygon’. The complexities in creating new products, processes and systems require both creative destruction and renovation of what is, as well as exploring virgin ground and creating anew without replicating the myths and mistakes of the past. While most graduates are well-versed in the principles of sustainability, one way of getting colleagues and executive teams to think about the implications of sustainability design is through the’ Laws of Sustainability’ based on Asimov’s ‘Laws of Robotics’. It’s a starting point and will provoke debate that will truly go beyond the traditional – outside the square style of thinking.

• First Law: A design/er may not injure any aspect of humanity or the natural environment or, through inaction, allow a human or the natural environment to come to harm.
• Second Law: A design/er must respect and act responsibly to the ultimate disposal of unwanted and obsolete material products. This must occur except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
• Third Law: A design/er should be recognised and identified within professional design companies, the tertiary sector and the corporate sector – brand cannot be code for anonymity.

One of the best examples of contemporary sustainability thinking that embraces all dimensions of the design profession and inspires us to have a vision of the future is the Masdar Initiative, which sits on the sands of Abu Dhabi and is projected for completion in 2016.

This new urban ecosystem is emerging from the desert as world leaders are developing a zero-carbon and zero-waste city. In Masdar, you will not own a car, but you will ride in lithium battery-powered travel pods and all waste water will be directed to farming. As part of the Masdar Initiative, a long-term strategic commitment by the government of Abu Dhabi to accelerate the development and deployment of future energy solutions, Masdar City will take sustainable development and living to a new level and will lead the world in understanding how all future cities should be built.

Masdar City is a clean-tech cluster, which is already attracting the world’s best practitioners across all areas of sustainability. Diverse businesses, which include innovators, incubators, research and development and solution providers, will be part of the journey to create, work and live in Masdar City. This city is an inspirational example of how creativity and new technologies can show the way of the future in the way we live, learn, play and build our careers.


Di Fleming is the director of Accelerated Knowledge Technologies Pty Ltd. She is also an educator, public speaker and strategic manager of Innovation and Provocateur. Di is currently a consultant/company director of AKT and board member of the Victorian Government’s Growth Areas Authority. Previous appointments include founding director of Digital Harbour Pty Ltd and lab.3000, and associate professorships at the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. As Principal of Kilvington Girls’ Grammar she was awarded Telstra Victorian Business Woman of the Year (1998–1999).