Emerging user demands for sustainable solutions, EMUDE

Ezio Manzini

Anna Meroni

pp. 157-179

in: Ralf Michel (ed), Design research now, Basel, Birkhäuser, 2007

Abstract

This paper reports on EMUDE (2004 / 06), a Specific Support Action financed by the European Commission Directorate within the 6^th FP. The project started by observing a phenomenon of social innovation : the emergence in Europe of groups of active, enterprising people inventing and putting into practice original ways of dealing with everyday problems, ways that can be considered promising in terms of sustainability. Taking these cases as a base, the research outlines a comprehensive map of emerging sustainable user demands and generates a set of qualitative scenarios of how these demands, and the consequent product-service innovation, may co-evolve.