Measuring Social Values of Design in the Commercial Sector

企业社会责任被许多人视为一种自律机制，企业可以借此确定其对社会的影响，并确保其遵守社会标准，例如人权。企业社会责任越来越被视为经济竞争力的一个重要方面，它可以鼓励产品/服务在功能和价格敏感度以外的方面采用。虽然企业社会责任在品牌中扮演着重要的角色，但设计有可能成为企业社会责任的一个关键方面，从企业赞助和认证扩大到将企业社会责任原则纳入整个产品/服务开发。人们普遍认为，购买符合道德的产品比向慈善机构捐赠更有效地解决全球贫困问题，这反映了强大的商业利益，因为它确保了产品提供的足够社会价值，使企业能够响应企业社会责任的要求。然而，大多数企业还没有在CSR实践中有效地使用设计，他们将其解释为支持慈善机构，并仅投资于具有明显好处的设计，例如促销设计。此外，设计的社会回报被隐含地量化，现有的投资回报和社会影响评估的财务评估工具不适合衡量通过设计产生的社会价值。因此，公司发现很难将设计视为满足企业社会责任要求并将社会价值观融入其主流产品和服务的工具之一。对于中小企业来说，情况更糟，它们较少能够获得和使用良好的设计，从而限制了它们的增长和创新潜力，而较大的公司将设计视为其运营不可或缺的可能性的可能性是前者的两倍。迫切需要开发一个用于衡量设计的社会回报的工具包，该工具包将通过明确确定非金融投资的社会影响来补充现有工具，以便(I)使英国公司在企业社会责任实践中有效地使用设计，(Ii)帮助英国公司在全球市场上引领道德企业。因此，关键问题是如何客观地量化设计创造的社会价值。我们相信，开发该工具包将使设计学科能够在新的产品/服务开发过程中跟踪通过设计创造的社会价值，类似于计算整个产品生命周期的碳足迹。作为研究思路的先导性研究，本项目旨在了解设计的社会价值，特别是在企业社会责任实践中，探索测量设计社会影响的背景问题、价值和方法，为开发测量设计社会价值的工具提供理论基础和基础知识。该项目将实现以下目标：OB 1.审查设计的社会价值的现有理论，特别是参考社会责任实践的社会影响。OB 2.确定设计在社会价值/责任方面的作用(S)和设计价值的关键概念。OB 3.检查现有的社会影响评估工具，以了解现有方法的局限性。OB 4.探索开发影响测量工具的潜在机会和好处。潜在的利益相关者包括来自非营利设计组织的研究伙伴、设计学者、设计专业人员和应邀参与该项目的中小企业。为实现这些目标，将开展深入的桌面研究和两个跨学科讲习班。将建立一个开放的知识共享平台和公开讨论论坛，作为正在进行的研究成果和辩论的在线储存库，这两个讲习班将作为传播和知识共享战略。开发的知识还将通过支持非营利组织的网络进行传播，创建期刊/会议论文，并将其介绍给布鲁内尔大学和CMU的设计学生用于教育目的。

CSR is seen by many as a self-regulation mechanism whereby businesses identify their impact on society and ensure that they comply with social standards, e.g. human rights. CSR is increasingly regarded as a crucial aspect of economic competitiveness, which can encourage product/service uptake on aspects beyond functionality and price sensitivity. While CSR takes an important role in brands, design has the potential to be a critical aspect of CSR, broadening activities from corporate sponsorship and certification to the incorporation of CSR principles throughout product/service development. The widely-held belief that buying ethical products is a more effective way of tackling global poverty than giving to charity reflects strong commercial benefits, by ensuring sufficient social values in product offerings, enabling businesses to respond to CSR imperatives. However, most businesses do not yet use design effectively in CSR practices, which they interpret as supporting charities, and invest in design only with apparent benefits, e.g. promotional design. Moreover, the social return of design is implicitly quantified, and existing financial appraising tools for Return on Investment and social impact assessment are unsuitable for measuring social values generated through design. As a result, companies find it difficult to consider design as one of the tools to address CSR requirements and integrate social values into their mainstream products and services. The situation is worse for SMEs, which are less able to access and use good design, thereby limiting their potential for growth and innovation while larger firms are twice as likely to see design as integral to their operations. There is an urgent need to develop a toolkit for measuring social return of design, which will complement existing tools by explicitly identifying the social impact of non-financial investments in order to (i) make UK companies effective users of design in CSR practices and (ii) help to make UK companies leading ethical enterprises in the global market. The key question, then, is how to objectively quantify social values created by design.We believe developing the toolkit will enable design disciplines to trace social values created through design during the new product/service development process, similar to the calculation of the carbon footprint throughout the product lifecycle. As a pilot study of the research idea, this project aims to understand the social value of design, especially in CSR practices, and explore contextual issues, value and means of measuring social impact of design, providing an underpinning theory and underlying knowledge to develop the tool for measuring the social values of design. The project will deliver following objectives:OB 1. To review existing theories of the social value of design, with particular reference to the social impact of CSR practices.OB 2. To identify the role(s) of design in relation to social value/responsibility and the critical notion of design value.OB 3. To examine current social impact assessment tools to understand the limitations of existing approaches.OB 4. To explore the potential opportunities and benefits of developing the impact measurement tool.Potential stakeholders include research partners from non-profit design organisations, design academics, design professionals, and SMEs invited to participate in the project. In-depth desktop research and two interdisciplinary workshops will be conducted to achieve the objectives. An open knowledge-sharing platform and open discussion forum will be created, as an online repository of ongoing research results and debates, and the two workshops will serve as dissemination and knowledge-sharing strategies. The developed knowledge will also be disseminated by support of the not-for-profit organisations' networks, creating journal/conference papers and introducing it to design students at Brunel and CMU for educational purposes.