Benchmarking Synergy Levels to Encourage International Standards of Sustainability for Metadesign

21世纪社会面临着气候变化、生物多样性减少、自然环境污染等诸多严重威胁。全球化体系的存在加剧了这些问题，如果不是原因的话。该体系旨在将越来越多的产品推向一个快速扩张的市场。大多数设计师几乎没有选择，只能运用他们的技能来支持市场力量。在不知不觉中，他们帮助创造了一个由过度消费和浪费驱动的社会。总体而言，我们迄今未能对上述问题产生重大影响。尽管“生态设计”、可持续发展设计等先驱做出了英勇的努力，但全球碳排放量继续上升，生物多样性正在减少。这是因为到目前为止采取的措施不足以驯服旨在无限增长的经济体系。因此，这项建议将通过将设计的正统界限内外的专家和专家聚集在一起，发展一种更普遍、更全面和更一致的合作设计模式(即，“元设计”)。值得注意的是，我们的研究人员将包括经济学家和经理。申请者之前的研究表明，许多人认为诸如“可持续消费”(UNEP，2006)之类的对策令人困惑、无关紧要或适得其反(Wood，2002)。我们发现，“可持续性”的论点被普遍认为是一种“双赢”的情景(即主观的成本-收益)。因此，我们将“协同效应”作为一个比“可持续性”更具潜力的目标。这主要是因为它听起来更积极乐观。我们已经将协同效应的基本构件确定为“双赢”要约(Wood，2006)。在我们之前(EPSRC/AHRC资助)的研究中，我们发现了选择这个数字的良好的心理和实际理由。我们还将使用我们的同事Vladim Kvitash博士提供的其他工具，利用它来建立自我反身性协同效应指标。为了使这些标准为业界所接受，我们将制定基准，使政府、商业和其他机构能够从物理、经济、伦理、生态和美学等多个层面对它们的表现进行审计。到目前为止，我们已经定义了协同效应的四个初步‘顺序’(Wood，2006)，它们将帮助我们找到将协调其他协同效应的‘协同效应’。理查德·巴克明斯特·富勒在谈到大自然的“协同效应”时也做了类似的描述。地方当局(创意路易斯汉姆机构)已经对我们的“协同”工具在设计委员会的问题解决演示中的应用产生了兴趣。在这项为期一天的实验中，研究人员被安排使用从经验演变为协同管理的原理。到第二年年底，我们的目标是与可持续社区：建设未来、副总理办公室和可持续社区学院、联合国环境规划署等相关项目分享和/或交付我们的研究结果。

21st Century society faces many serious threats such as climate change, reductions in biological diversity, and pollution of the natural environment. These have been exacerbated, if not caused, by a gloabl system that is designed to proliferate more and more products into a rapidly expanding market. Most designers have seen little option but to apply their skills in support of market forces. Unwittingly, they have helped to create a society driven by over-consumptoin and waste. Collectively, we have so far failed to make a significant impact on the above problems. Despite the heroic efforts by the pioneers of 'eco-design', design for sustainability etc, global carbon emissions continue to rise, and bio-diversity is reducing. This is because measures undertaken so far have been insufficient to tame an economic system designed for limitless growth. This proposal will develop therefore a more pervasive, comprehensive and consentual mode of co-design (i.e. 'metadesign') by bringing together specialists and experts both within and beyond the orthodox boundaries of design. Notably, our researchers will include economists and managers. Previous research by the applicants has shown that many people see countermeasures such as 'sustainable consumption' (UNEP, 2006) as confusing, inconsequential or counterproductive (Wood, 2002). We found that 'sustainability' arguments are popularly percieved (i.e. in subjective cost-benefit terms) as a 'lose-win' scenario. We have therefore adopted 'synergy' as a goal that has more potential that 'sustainability'. This is mainly because it sounds more positive and optimistic. We have identified our basic building block of synergy as a 'win-win-win-win' offer (Wood, 2006). In our previous (EPSRC/AHRC funded) research we found good psychological, and practical arguments for choosing this figure. We will also use it to establish self-reflexive synergy indicators using additional tools by our colleague Dr. Vladim Kvitash. In order to make these acceptable for industry we will devise benchmarks enabling governmental, commercial and other institutions to audit their performance in an aggregation of levels such as the physical, economic, ethical, ecological and aesthetic. So far, we have defined four preliminary 'orders' of synergy (Wood, 2006) that will help us to find 'synergies' that will orchestrate other synergies. Richard Buckminster Fuller described something similar when he spoke of Nature's 'synergy of synergies'. There is already interest from local authorities (The Creative Lewisham Agency) who have witnessed the application of our 'synergy' tools in a demonstration of problem solving at the Design Council. In this one-day experiment, researchers were marshalled using priciples that evolved from and experience into the managment of synergy. By the end of year 2, we subsequently aim to share with, and/or deliver our findings to, related projects, such as Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Academy of Sustainable Communities, UNEP, etc).