Acting Responsibly. Design as a Sustainable Practice for Society

The rapid rise of emerging issues, often linked to the absence of sustainable action, exposes society to unexpected and unwanted risks. Today, more than in the past, this condition of fragility places at the center of the design debate the need to build a critical point of view, concerning some production actions that still accept the inevitability of environmental damage, whose resolution is postponed to pursue economic growth. Only through responsible action will it be possible to predict the effects and design the remedies useful for reconciling the relationship between human beings and the ecosystem. In this perspective, it is the convergence between different disciplinary skills that offers a sustainable and effective response to urgency, shortening the supply chain that goes from creation to production of the artifact and reducing the gap between market and consumer. Thanks to the methods of Ethical communication and the techniques of digital manufacturing and prototyping machines, fashion, and more generally the textile sector, could lead to the creation of valuable products considered as communication tools useful for the common good of society, not only in socio-cultural terms but also in terms of sustainability and circularity.