Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
FUTURE OF XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:40:06
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to season seven, episode 25 of Future of XYZ. Today marks our last new episode of 2025, which is kind of remarkable. I still feel like it must be January, but it soon enough will be. We'll just have a different set of four numbers after it. Today with us, I'm really pleased to speak with Professor Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, she's a senior researcher at the Royal College of Art in London, where she co-directs at the Becoming Regenerative Lab.
00:00:40:08 - 00:00:57:02
Speaker 1
She is also a research professor and, at the Center of Applied Research for Art, Design, and Technology in the Netherlands. And she leads their regenerative art and design practice. Delfina, thank you so much for joining us today on Future of XYZ.
00:00:57:04 - 00:01:00:00
Speaker 2
Many thanks, Lisa, for the invitation.
00:01:00:02 - 00:01:32:14
Speaker 1
Well, we're going to be talking about a topic that is your expertise at its core and a conversation that perhaps many people don't know a lot about, which is often the case on Future of XYZ, but in this case, the future of regenerative design. So as I always do, I like to start out by asking how we define regenerative design in the context both of your expertise, but also today's conversation.
00:01:32:16 - 00:01:57:14
Speaker 2
Brilliant, so I think perhaps how to start is to speak a little bit of my background, because that will explain my interest in the topic and how I approach it. I am a biologist. So I have, an initial foundation in the living sciences. And now I'm going to jump from that to how I define regenerative design, which is also aligned with how certain biologists approach the topic.
00:01:57:14 - 00:02:31:07
Speaker 2
Regenerative design is an approach to design that goes way beyond minimizing harm or doing less bad. It really, we think systems aiming to restore health in social, ecological, political, and economic systems. So based on living principles, it really tries to regenerate systems rather than maintaining this status quo. So there are a couple of components. It’s the living principles bringing back health to a rooted system and rethinking system.
00:02:31:10 - 00:02:39:23
Speaker 2
And this three aspects make it for me I feel that is specifically fascinating and also very much needed nowadays.
00:02:40:00 - 00:02:57:06
Speaker 1
For sure, and you mentioned that you have an undergraduate bachelor's degree in biology, which is really interesting. But then you went on to get your PhD at the Royal College of Art, in the School of Design. So I'm curious what
00:02:57:08 - 00:02:57:21
Speaker 2
00:02:57:23 - 00:03:08:13
Speaker 1
what drove you towards regenerative design versus kind of, let's say, classic sustainability and more importantly, like what is the big difference between the two?
00:03:08:15 - 00:03:40:04
Speaker 2
Yes, I had this very unlinear journey in my life. I was always interested in design, art, and architecture, but I had burning questions about living systems. So I started by sciences. But my spirit and my cultural life was always around art, design, and architecture. So once the RCA, this was back in 2012, designers were working at the moment more, I would say, yeah, with sustainability, there was a big interest with bio art.
00:03:40:06 - 00:04:08:18
Speaker 2
And when I was speaking with designers and I was surrounded by them, and I also realized there's big, blind spots when it's coming towards understanding the sciences. But at the same time, I always very much appreciate that imagination that characterized all these fields. So I felt the need of bringing, yeah, biology and ecology and this idea of systems towards design and, and the field.
00:04:08:20 - 00:04:33:11
Speaker 2
So that was always a field that interested me that I thought was fascinating and I thought had a lot of value. So back in that time, regenerative design was not even being addressed properly on design schools. I started basically always trying to help students to think about material ethics of care and also supply chains and thinking, what are we doing?
00:04:33:13 - 00:05:01:10
Speaker 2
And what's also that kind of end of life? And slowly the thinking started shifting. There was more conversations about regenerative design, and in that way I took the lead at the Royal College of Art in bringing these approaches, which was, for me, a really fascinating instance to combine this unbounded imaginations that artists and designers have with profound consideration of ecological systems
00:05:01:12 - 00:05:20:01
Speaker 2
and the big ambition. I think that is also something that it really hooked me to the field of rethinking systems and breaking out from that status quo that we can say that perhaps characterize a little bit sustainability within that thinking of we have to do less bad, but we're not being that radical.
00:05:20:03 - 00:05:46:16
Speaker 1
It's interesting because I think the classic definition of sustainable development, right, is the ability, I mean this is the classic old school, I say old school, but it's actually not that old definition of the ability to satisfy fundamental human needs today without compromising the possibility of future generations to do the same, to satisfy theirs. And what I'm hearing from you is that if I'm summarizing correctly, so
00:05:46:16 - 00:06:14:24
Speaker 1
so please jump in. But sustainable design is participatory, iterative, and individual to either the community or the environment or the project or the company. Whereas what you're talking about in regenerative design is kind of based on this recognition that resilient ecosystems generally kind of operate in closed loop systems, which feedback at each stage is necessary and essential because you're actually trying to give more than you're taking.
00:06:14:24 - 00:06:19:17
Speaker 1
Is that is that accurate or is that or what am I missing?
00:06:19:19 - 00:06:47:00
Speaker 2
Yes. I mean, there's many things to unpack in what you say. And maybe I'm going to start with that first definition of sustainability and needs. I think our current supply chains, the way that we're dealing with globalization, the way that we're very much not place based and focused on enhancing life in, in wherever we are, it really challenges those needs that we have and how those needs could be addressed.
00:06:47:00 - 00:07:13:14
Speaker 2
And also what's the level of comfort that we don't question whenever we see needs? I, I'm very fond of, some literature that is actually coming from architecture. There is this professor called Daniel Barber. He's an architectural historian, and he has a really interesting paper called After Comfort. And in that paper he addressed how design is really complicit with this kind of carbon footprint because we maintain our level of comfort.
00:07:13:16 - 00:07:41:04
Speaker 2
And that's a project that I did when I was a design researcher in residency at the Design Museum in London, that the exhibition that I did was called A Not Too Comfortable Future, in which I allowed designers and architects to rethink, okay, if we break that idea of needs and comfort, and we really think about what's best for both community and the planet, how that completely changes the way that we design.
00:07:41:05 - 00:08:12:08
Speaker 2
And what's fascinating exercise, because we really had to rethink. Yeah. How are we more reciprocal with that locality and how ambitious we could be with a completely different way of thinking? And that's what I perhaps address more in terms of the value of regenerative design, which is how could those systems could be radically different if we break out of the status quo of the system that we're used to, instead of doing little fix.
00:08:12:08 - 00:08:31:08
Speaker 2
And in that way, I can relate this to perhaps Mariana Mazzucato. And this idea of mission design is not about little fixes, because the system is a bit rotten. But what's that ambition and can, and how can we move towards that end in a systemic approach?
00:08:31:10 - 00:08:52:08
Speaker 1
We're going to come back to some of this, but it's you keep speaking about systems and an uncomfort, I mean, I love this idea of after comfort, an uncomfortable future, because it's one of the things that our capitalist economy is all about comfort and things. I mean, I remember in the 2008 economic collapse, I had just graduated from business school, having come out of a design background.
00:08:52:08 - 00:09:20:13
Speaker 1
So I, I like you kind of nontraditional. Right. And and I was so horrified listening to the news, constantly talking about how we had to in instigate and inspire consumption. There was there was no way out of the Great Recession other than to stimulate purchasing. And I'd gone to grad school to do sustainability. And it was 2006 when I went in and no one was talking about sustainability at a global level, for sure.
00:09:20:13 - 00:09:39:17
Speaker 1
And then when the economic collapse happened, it fell to the backburner even more, especially in the luxury sector, which is where I had originated. And I'm curious because I think what all of that suggests is we have to give something up if we're really actually going to be part of a sustainable future or much less a regenerative one.
00:09:39:19 - 00:10:02:17
Speaker 1
And I think, you know, it's only certain circles, that's for sure. It's a little radical, but there is growing recognition that perhaps humans are just one piece of this complex ecosystem called planet Earth. Right? And perhaps even beyond planet Earth. But let's just stick on the planet for right now, and that our capitalist economy is based on extraction, which is fundamentally unsustainable.
00:10:02:21 - 00:10:25:08
Speaker 1
I think, you know, Earth Overshoot Day happened in July 31st this year, which is the first time in all the years that's been tracked since the late 70s. It happened prior to August, and it's got an increasingly earlier, which means that July 31st this year, we overextended already what the natural resources of the Earth can occur accommodate in an annual year.
00:10:25:10 - 00:10:45:11
Speaker 1
I guess what I'd like to ask. Regenerative practices are often interconnected to this idea of the new economy, right? Which is a movement or a theory, if you will, of people and planet should come first. That human well-being, not economic growth, is what actually should be prioritized. What is the opportunity do you see for regenerative design in our economy?
00:10:45:13 - 00:10:53:14
Speaker 1
And are these two ideas actually integral to one another? Or like how how do we how do we think about that?
00:10:53:16 - 00:11:40:11
Speaker 2
I think they're completely integral, as you mentioned. And for that we need to be, as you put it, way less extractive, give back to to the systems that we take and also rethink this globalized supply chain. That kind of is so integral to our economy and move toward place based approaches. And within this, I believe there's a big space for regenerative designers and also regenerative design entrepreneurs to find ways of how to be very caring in terms of this material use, and also how to involve local community while also having way more ethical business.
00:11:40:13 - 00:12:22:11
Speaker 2
And in that way, I really want to bring, yeah, this notion of, of beauty, in Europe, a the new kind of policy includes the term beauty in addition to environmental approaches. And I do think that this beauty also can come into business model, which are the values, who is benefiting. So I think in that way it also opens up a door for business futures to be reconsidered in ways that they are interesting, but also they're more healthy again, both for ecological systems but also for communities.
00:12:22:13 - 00:12:47:17
Speaker 2
So design touches upon all this. And you have many fields within design. One thing is how are you going to get dressed? How are we going to be these services? How are we going to buy these products that we're still going to get? Ideally, we get also way less things. And I think that's also part of regenerative design is to get better things that are well sourced, also well constructed.
00:12:47:19 - 00:13:05:20
Speaker 2
But we need also to understand that we cannot keep the speed of consumption that we're used to. So yeah, there are many also important aspects in terms of our behavior as consumers and citizens that are coming within this regenerative design approach.
00:13:05:22 - 00:13:34:01
Speaker 1
What do you think needs to happen? I mean, this is now outside of it's actually not it's totally a design, I look at design as a challenge that solves problems. So, it's not outside the field of design, but some who might be listening, who aren’t designers, might think differently. What do you think needs to happen to make the general population, general in the developed world especially, but generally broadly, globally more conscientious of our role in this connected ecosystem?
00:13:36:17 - 00:14:01:02
Speaker 2
I think, yeah, that's a very important question. And I think there are many actors that need to act upon. I would start by addressing the fact that we need education to change. Of course, this really starts in profound ways of how we understand ourselves in the world. So that comes back to how do we raised up kids from from an early age to also how we address bachelors, masters, and PhDs.
00:14:01:05 - 00:14:32:11
Speaker 2
So for me, there has to be radical change also in the way that we teach and educate designers. At the same time, there is a huge role in policies with the project I'm co-directing called Becoming Regenerative. We have investigated more than 70 world cases of entrepreneurs that are working within regeneration, and they're an incredible amount of practical barriers.
00:14:32:15 - 00:15:10:17
Speaker 2
So we really examine also what is the tension between this conceptual belief and those pragmatic pressures, which are economic but also infrastructural. And I can give you examples, because the whole economy, in a way, it's it's very much used to inert, and fossil fuel materials. And that is really creating legacy standards. So if we don't change those legacy standards, we're going to keep privileging all these kind of innovations that are not contesting and not addressing biological production.
00:15:10:19 - 00:15:34:08
Speaker 2
And I'm going to be pragmatic on that. I say to give you like a real example of of some, some aspects that we have noticed when we speak with this. Yeah. Design entrepreneurs, there is an incredible company called Carbon Cell. There were my students at the Royal College of Art, and they're doing this insulation that is based on bio chart, which is carbon negative, using food waste streams.
00:15:34:10 - 00:15:57:06
Speaker 2
And they're compostable because, again, it's all organic and at the same time, they're not being rewarded for being compostable because the whole reward in this economy is much more based on being recyclable, which again, if we think about it, this is coming because we're so hooked on on plastic or another example, there's companies that are working with mycelium to create insulation panels.
00:15:57:08 - 00:16:00:18
Speaker 1
Or lighting or any number of interior products.
00:16:00:20 - 00:16:15:07
Speaker 2
Correct. And they pass all the test, the fire proofing. Of course, it's important they pass the insulation, you know, thresholds that need to be passed. But when they measure how this is composted, life does a little bit what it wants. So it grows in.
00:16:15:09 - 00:16:19:04
Speaker 1
Because mycelium is mushrooms. For anyone who's not familiar.
00:16:19:06 - 00:17:05:23
Speaker 2
Yes. So it grows in different ways. And you cannot standardize something organic the same way you can standardized something that is inert. For example, plastic. And at the same time, all these tests are incredibly expensive to, to, to find an appointment and to pass them. So if we think about there's this new generation of very talented young people really willing to change the way that we produce and create things, and they have this enormous upfronted budget that needs to be put in a very long term time scale of passing of this test without being incentivized, then that almost immediately reduces a lot of their initial budget that they could be using to do more
00:17:05:23 - 00:17:28:00
Speaker 2
R&D experiments. So I do believe that we need also policy on board because we need to increase this industry. We need to incentivize these very talented designers that are doing amazing things. And I've heard of so many interesting things happening, but it's very uphill for them to do things. At the same time. It's not just about own incentivizing.
00:17:28:00 - 00:17:54:22
Speaker 2
I actually think we should de-incentivize all the toxicity that has been, yeah, so prevalent this last decades. And of course, we also have industry that needs to come on board with. Yeah, way more ambitious programs to change their production. Some companies of course, genuinely do it because they're interested. They have interesting labs.
00:17:54:24 - 00:17:59:23
Speaker 1
And because it often shows really solid ROI and quick payback.
00:18:00:00 - 00:18:00:20
Speaker 2
Correct.
00:18:00:22 - 00:18:03:24
Speaker 1
It's it's actually often very good business.
00:18:04:01 - 00:18:17:15
Speaker 2
Correct. So it's a very good business. And I think there's a lot of conscious people out there. So it's a very interesting market. But I do think an extra pressure from policy would be extremely helpful.
00:18:17:17 - 00:18:34:19
Speaker 1
Well, sitting from the US, I would like to say that I'd like to see some policy, on a national level, about recycling. That would be a starting point for even just talking about plastics again. I think it's less than 5% of all plastics end up actually getting recycled. So we have we have a long way to go.
00:18:34:21 - 00:19:03:04
Speaker 1
Compost seems like an even better option. It leads to an interesting question, though, Delfina just I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, so just briefly, what you're talking about the argument between composability, for instance, reusability, recyclability. These are, these are words that are, compostable isn't but a lot of this a concept is on R-ladder, which is really circular design circularity, circular economies, which talks about like a life cycle, end to end, and reusability.
00:19:03:06 - 00:19:10:22
Speaker 1
How is how is regenerative different or similar to circular design?
00:19:10:24 - 00:19:37:12
Speaker 2
Yes. Circular design, basically what it does is to try to get back materials within that. I think we cannot deny that you need to collect things. You need to create these systems to process things. These systems need a lot of energy to process these. So it comes also with a high footprint to then recover the material, which is undeniably better than these things.
00:19:37:12 - 00:20:10:23
Speaker 2
Getting lost on different, yeah waste fields. Regenerative design what it does is to I think first of all ask, do we need all these things out there? And maybe I connect this back to this idea of after comfort. So I don't know, aluminum cans. Should we always have our own, you know, portable compasses or the economy should provide things that in a way we don't dispose easily.
00:20:11:00 - 00:20:52:11
Speaker 2
How would that work if we're not constantly using all these disposable things? That of course, then, thanks to a circular economy paradigm, we could then recover aluminum being a very good case. In many other case, there's a lot of things that get lost in this process. You cannot recover things 100%. So would the main difference would also be what could be done through bio based approaches, how much of this could be really done locally, and how much care do we put to this thing so we don't make this circulate in this kind of circular economy?
00:20:52:15 - 00:21:22:09
Speaker 2
And I'm not saying that circularity is not important. We have so much of these materials around that they're being wasted and companies still are using a lot of these disposables. So of course, at the moment we need circularity. I'm not saying we don't, but I think in the big picture and especially, you know, when we touch upon design education, I would really like to address the new generation of designers of how can this life be different so we don't have to do all these things.
00:21:22:09 - 00:21:39:19
Speaker 2
So all these materials are not going around all the time. And that really fascinates me. And I think it's a very good use also of critical creative minds that we have out there and in the future, people they connect to the environment. If they connect to politics, if they connect to economy, which is something that I would like to see.
00:21:39:21 - 00:21:42:17
Speaker 1
Maybe very interdisciplinary, really.
00:21:42:19 - 00:21:44:13
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
00:21:44:15 - 00:22:11:16
Speaker 1
It's interesting, it from my understanding, and, and actually, I had an episode many ago, this is episode 160 or so overall. So if people are interested in Future of XYZ, there's a long backlog. But I did have a conversation on regenerative agriculture a long time ago. And and what's interesting to me about regenerative agriculture is that seems to be the origin of the word, not the word regenerative, but in the context in which we are speaking about it today.
00:22:11:16 - 00:22:37:24
Speaker 1
Delfina, it was kind of coined, if you will, in the 1970s. It originally went back to agricultural practices, where the idea, I believe, was to make sure that the soil held its nutrients was, you know, we were basically producing more than sustainable yield. We were giving back to protect, to enhance, to evolve the soil, the nutrients, the water sources, the crop yields, the local community, the natural ecosystem, etc..
00:22:38:01 - 00:22:49:13
Speaker 1
How did we move from farming, regenerative farming to regenerative being used in terms of economics, in terms of, design generally?
00:22:49:15 - 00:23:16:11
Speaker 2
I think that's a really good call. And therefore I stressed the need to move from agriculture, which I think it's so important. And I in the beginning of whenever I teach, you know, regenerative design, I do address this because it's like a very beautiful example how you can restore the health of soil by multi crop being. And in that way you see more life and it's very clear and it's very evident, the way that you can show it.
00:23:16:11 - 00:23:38:22
Speaker 2
And I usually also take my students to see that soil to feel it, to see the life to it, you know, find the worms. It's just very impressive. And it's an excellent, yeah beginning I would say. At the same time, obviously we live in a world where we have many disciplines and many industries, so we cannot just stay in agriculture because there's so many things that need attention, very importantly economy.
00:23:39:00 - 00:23:53:24
Speaker 2
So regenerative economy is a whole field. And I think, yeah, people studying business should completely change the way that they understand GDP and economy. But that's another topic. But going now back to what concerned this episode, which is.
00:23:54:01 - 00:23:57:13
Speaker 1
Agreed, by the way, just just say agree.
00:23:57:15 - 00:24:12:04
Speaker 2
Amazing, so yes going back to design, we have all these heritage of industrial design that is based on mass production, globalization, standardization, I don't know, think about the.
00:24:12:04 - 00:24:17:19
Speaker 1
Efficiency, economies of scale. I mean, that's what we learn in business school.
00:24:17:19 - 00:24:43:22
Speaker 2
Completely. And when you go wild, you have like, you know, the 80s as a sad example of as if the world has no tomorrow, the way we use material, everything was synthetic. Leather moved around excessive. So, I mean, we have all these eras of design as well when we move to perhaps more artistic design approaches. but we reached an era in which the planet is really in a very eroded state.
00:24:43:22 - 00:25:08:04
Speaker 2
So we cannot keep designing the same way that we have been designing when we were way less conscious. And I didn't have the same consciousness about this when I, I don't know, 25 years ago, design was a discipline that was there. It was for me, very intriguing. It was very wild. And and I had interest on that and beauty and creativity.
00:25:08:06 - 00:25:43:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, really attracted me. But I would say I even myself, being a biologist, didn't have that super connected consciousness. And, and later on, with everything that has been happening, at least I have been developing a very critical approach to how things are done. And and that really triggers in me this interest in connecting regenerative strategies. But to the field of design, how do we source materials, where are they coming from?
00:25:43:16 - 00:26:06:15
Speaker 2
Which are the properties, how we could do things locally? What are we doing? Do we really need this? How these things are going to end? Which kind of communities can you involve? Going back to the beautiful economic system? Can we be ambitious? How can this give back to our community how this material that you're sourcing actually could really benefit the planet?
00:26:06:17 - 00:26:29:14
Speaker 2
So there's so many exciting things about this, and I really don't want to think about this field as something restrictive. It's like, oh, you have to be conscious, then it has to be boring. And then you need to only think about the problems or the opposite. What I tried to do in my teaching practice is to really highlight the creative opportunities for the new generation of designers to really come in with incredible visions.
00:26:29:14 - 00:26:40:11
Speaker 2
And I still believe design should be exciting, should be fun, and has to be beautiful. That for sure. But we cannot keep producing the same way that we've been doing it for the last years.
00:26:40:13 - 00:27:10:06
Speaker 1
I love this idea of kind of combining the potential of art and design and technology and science, you know, to kind of solve the challenges of our time, which are myriad and interconnected just like the systems. We're coming up on time. I want to do two things. First, I want to, just summarize, I think what you've talked to in terms of regenerative design and its core principles, if I've gotten them, and please correct.
00:27:10:22 - 00:27:38:15
Speaker 1
But I got from them I think it’s systems thinking, it's kind of this feedback loops around equity and collaboration, which really is community based. Net positive impact. Place based design, I keep hearing you talk about like local and place and the power of place. You didn't use these words, but you're talking about in, in kind of in some of the materiality.
00:27:38:15 - 00:28:02:13
Speaker 1
You're talking about bio biophilia, biomimicry, which I'm sure as a biologist is pretty fascinating stuff. And there's lots happening. As you said, you're seeing it with your students. And then circular economics. Is there anything that I'm missing or that you wouldn't agree in, in that summary of kind of what regenerative design is?
00:28:02:15 - 00:28:23:14
Speaker 2
I think that's a very nice summary. But perhaps the one word and again, coming back, this is my biology side. And this is I relate to a lot of what Daniel Christian Wahl who wrote this very good book called Regenerative Cultures, is this idea of the living principles, how we can enhance life. And this is something very important.
00:28:23:16 - 00:28:49:11
Speaker 2
And within this, I really want to make a little comment. Life is super important, but also living things depends on non-living things. So I would not like to undermine the non-living aspects of like like minerals, soil that has so many components that are not just a living part, the atmosphere, the gases, they're all so important. They're not living, but they allow life.
00:28:49:13 - 00:28:59:20
Speaker 2
So I think that living principle is something that I would like to highlight with saying that we also need to take care of all these non-living resources as part of the system.
00:28:59:22 - 00:29:20:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. As I mean, as a planet, as we said, where we're talking about moon economies and space economies now and all sorts of things. I actually did my first episode or second episode ever back five and a half years ago on, on the space economy with the former innovation head at NASA. It was totally fascinating.
00:29:20:21 - 00:29:48:18
Speaker 1
So last question before the very last question. And it's like a super fast round. So you have to go as fast as you can in shortest order. You ready for it? So it's a lightning round, Delfina. It's very American style, answering very briefly for each. What is the opportunity for regenerative design in the following disciplines? Okay. We have ten, ready? Industrial design.
00:29:48:20 - 00:29:53:24
Speaker 2
Rethink the whole supply chain and the production sites.
00:29:54:01 - 00:29:56:18
Speaker 1
Packaging.
00:29:56:20 - 00:29:59:06
Speaker 2
The really need of it.
00:29:59:08 - 00:30:03:01
Speaker 1
Architecture and the built environment.
00:30:03:03 - 00:30:27:12
Speaker 2
The composition and manufacturing and spaces. And also if you are using the bio approach, we also need to rethink the care that we need to put. We cannot treat something that is bio as if it was concrete. And we think about the links also that we're coming up with and the origin of materials, because you can have something bio, but we can bring this bio thing from the other part of the world.
00:30:27:14 - 00:30:29:11
Speaker 2
That's something I would also think it's important.
00:30:29:15 - 00:30:40:08
Speaker 1
The built environment is a big one and it's very complex. How about digital design, thinking I mean very broadly, UI, UX, web, platforms, etc.?
00:30:40:10 - 00:31:03:09
Speaker 2
Yes, in that way, I think the carbon footprint that is necessary has to be considered going back to extraction. And at the same time, that's a field that also has interesting aspects. So many things that we do in the living world could maybe not be done if we advanced some prototypes. For example, in the virtual world. So there's amazing things about the field of being virtual.
00:31:03:11 - 00:31:07:22
Speaker 2
And at the same time, there's a huge cost whenever we're using all these tools.
00:31:07:24 - 00:31:18:03
Speaker 1
For sure. Even further in that domain, emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, AR, VR, etc..
00:31:18:05 - 00:31:44:01
Speaker 2
Again, we really need to think about all the extractive practices, how that is affecting both, like rare earth minerals, metals, and the global South, especially. You know, this really affects community and water. I'm originally from Chile, so I could see that very closely with what is happening there and with communities that are without water. There are all these new data centers being constructed and at the same time...
00:31:44:03 - 00:31:48:04
Speaker 1
And the largest dumping ground for fast fashion in the world.
00:31:48:06 - 00:32:11:24
Speaker 2
Absolutely. And in addition to that, because I'm also a teacher and I work with young people, I think a lot of what is happening with AI is diluting the voice and the originality of the thinking with this averaging thing that we see with chatGPT and all these tools. And that's something I miss, it is maybe more impeccable, it's more polished, but it's really losing voice and originality.
00:32:12:01 - 00:32:19:02
Speaker 2
So that's something also that I would like to address in a regenerative future. We cannot lose the originality of thinking.
00:32:19:04 - 00:32:22:19
Speaker 1
That's so profound. okay. We have five more quick ones. Food systems?
00:32:22:19 - 00:32:30:08
Speaker 2
Again, place based approach and non-chemical and ancestral as much as we can. Sources.
00:32:30:08 - 00:32:36:08
Speaker 1
Social impact slash humanitarian aid.
00:32:36:10 - 00:32:53:10
Speaker 2
I think that we really need to increase our efforts in terms of, yeah, planetarium ethics and care. Education? Yeah, we really need to rethink the way we educate, but also bringing all these principles that we have addressed in this talk.
00:32:53:12 - 00:33:00:21
Speaker 1
Last two, what is the opportunity for regenerative design in health care?
00:33:00:23 - 00:33:31:03
Speaker 2
I think health care is an important area because it hasn't been rethought for for many, many, many years. The spaces haven’t changed. All the tools have been thought by engineers and mostly men, and there's so much usage of plastic. So I think in terms of eroded system health is a really interesting one. And with that, of course, comes prevention. Being healthy, not having all these toxics will most probably reduce the chances that we end up in the hospital in the first place.
00:33:31:05 - 00:33:40:21
Speaker 1
Less war too. Okay. Last one, what is the opportunity for regenerative design in politics?
00:33:40:23 - 00:34:14:08
Speaker 2
I think this is a really important one. Going back to erosion, I think we're in very polarized times where things are are not being thought in terms of the, of the wider idea of health, both in terms of environment and people. So I do think this needs a future for in ethics of care going way beyond personal agendas and really thinking about, yeah, the humanitarian future, but also thinking way above the scale of of a single elected.
00:34:14:10 - 00:34:32:00
Speaker 2
Yeah. Candidates time span. Because these things take a long time if we think about regeneration. And this is something very important where we're actually policies kick in. Results can take many years. So we need to be ambitious and we really need to go beyond a four year mandate.
00:34:32:02 - 00:34:56:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. For sure. Okay. Thank you for that. That was awesome. Very inspiring. Very last question, Delfina, for you. I ask every guest this at the end of our episode. What is your greatest hope for the future of regenerative design in 25 years? So that, as of right now, would take us to 2050?
00:34:56:07 - 00:35:27:11
Speaker 2
I would really hope in 2050 that policies have kicked in. And all these amazing people that I'm seeing now are super incentivized. And at the same time, that educational system that concerns design, both from bachelor to masters and and you name it, has completely changed by allowing students to think in a non-industrial way, in carrying ethical approaches to design.
00:35:27:13 - 00:35:48:01
Speaker 2
And as I was mentioning in this episode, that these students are rethinking systems and not just in terms of creating these ideas, but actually that they have connected with all the relevant actors and that they're actually creating impact in the real in a systemic manner.
00:35:48:03 - 00:36:05:02
Speaker 1
Professor Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, PhD, and professor at the Royal College of Art in London, among many other aspects, thank you so much for joining us for this final episode of 2025 on Future of XYZ. It's been a pleasure.
00:36:05:04 - 00:36:07:21
Speaker 2
Many thanks, Lisa, a pleasure to talk to you.
00:36:07:23 - 00:36:27:13
Speaker 1
For everyone watching, you can also listen anywhere you get your favorite podcasts. Please try to leave us a five star review on Apple or Spotify that helps people find us. I don't ask that enough. It's really important. If you're listening, you can also watch this on YouTube or you can follow Future of XYZ.
00:36:27:13 - 00:36:55:08
Speaker 1
And iF Design, our presenting partner, on Instagram. You can also visit ifdesign.com/xyz to get all links to all shows, show notes, transcripts, etc.. we will, be reprising our 150th episode, with Nick Foster RDI an industrial designer, also London guy for the holidays.
00:36:55:08 - 00:37:11:02
Speaker 1
And we will see you in season eight, 2026 with the future of movie going, with a very senior person at Dolby. So thank you for tuning in this season. Delfina, thank you again for this very inspiring and informative conversation.
00:37:11:04 - 00:37:13:10
Speaker 2
Many thanks. Lisa. Bye bye.