PParsons
3601
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Fall 2011
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Faculty:
Barent Roth
In this course, you will learn how to innovate new kinds of sustainable business models that facilitate less materials intense societies. The economies through which we resource our everyday lives are a major cause of current unsustainability. Merely reducing the ecological impact of business as usual is not sufficient. But more radical changes to society still need, especially for the purposes of transition, to offer opportunities for businesses. Consequently sustainability must involve new business model generation, creating value propositions from more sustainable material flows. This course surveys the kinds of business propositions that afford closed loop economies, with slower materials flows, often via the decoupling of use and ownership within service systems. The course comprises a lecture and studio. The lecture surveys mainstream and alternative, and past and future business models, interrogating their anthropological and philosophical bases, their socio-technical contexts (such as those afforded by the new kinds of sociality arising with the use of social and locative media), and the kinds of social (un)sustainability that they depend upon and reinforce. The lecture also explores processes by which businesses innovate new value systems, focusing on servicization innovating service offerings that can displace household product ownership. Note: Students will attend the ULEC Not Owning Design Sustainable Futures lecture each week during class hours.
