Most often activism involves developing power outside systems of institutionalized power (eg governments, corporations, educational institutions, religious institutions). Activism isn’t about telling people what to do, it is about groups of people with beliefs working to gain power to change society. It is political, another reason why it sits uncomfortably within the business framework. The main issue I raised in the review concerns the scope and limits of business in the role of activism. I don’t feel your reply really sheds any light on that. But then again, it wasn’t the purpose of your book, it just seems like an important related question. No one book can do it all.

I agree that contemporary issues such as sustainable consumption which are typically not “rights based” (in the way that the civil rights, labor rights etc movements were) are much more complicated not only from a scientific perspective, but also from a political perspective. And quite obviously this has even more serious implications for the roles of businesses.

I think we see plenty of positive examples of businesses being involved in taking action (activism) for change in the design arena. Take for example some of the rating systems, like the US Green Building Council’s LEED, which began as a bunch of demonstration projects, grew to a rating system and now has institutionalized change in the form of policy in many cities and states. However, we already see that the LEED rating system probably needs revamp in terms of climate change concerns — as the amount of change needed becomes more drastic, how many businesses will stay at the table? If they stay at the table, will they prevent the kind of change that is needed because ultimately it is too financially expensive? Is the social enterprise model more workable in this scenario?

• In terms of the sourcing, in general, I’ve sourced wherever I could find appropriate and valuable sources. For example…
• The source for the Meaning discussion is right at the beginning, at the bottom of page 111. This is the website for one of my past books, in which we put forth the original Meaning Model, plus definitions of the core meanings, etc. While the diagram doesn’t appear in the book in quite the same way (this is an update since then), all of the material discussed in Design is the Problem is explained in that book.
• Likewise, the source of the list of disassembly techniques is from my own notes, compiled over several years. Some came from one reference, others from others. The entire list doesn’t exist anywhere else as it’s been something I’ve added to for some time. There is no list to source elsewhere though, obviously, there are lists that other designers and engineers have created in the past. I could have referenced 4 or 5 and they still wouldn’t have represented the full list. I’m not sure what the value of that would have been.
• I can’t shed light on the Index as I had nothing to do with it and it isn’t how I would have built it either.
• As for activism, in my experience, the only time the kind of activism you refer to is successful is when the public is already either ready to change their behavior or as already done so. Activism doesn’t make change by telling people what to do or choose. So, telling people to “not eat lamb” is never going to be successful unless people aren’t ready to stop eating lamb or you can show that eating lamb is contradictory to some other values they hold. I don’t think that we’ve been at all successful making choices for people or telling them what they should or shouldn’t do. We have to inform people as best we can of the impacts of their actions but, then, allow them to choose on their own. Indeed, one of the things you learn from looking at systems is that, very often, the same choices don’t make sense for everyone or in every context.

For example, there should be nothing wrong with New Zealanders eating lamb. So, we can’t just say “people shouldn’t eat lamb.” We can’t ever say “People in the UK shouldn’t eat lamb” because there is plenty of reason why people who eat lamb raised in the UK, on their own farms, for instance, are eating sustainably. It’s probably safe to say “if the majority of people in the UK didn’t eat lamb, it’s likely that they would be eating more sustainably.” But that doesn’t give anyone much guidance. If we tell people in the UK not to eat lamb, they would just eat something else instead. Without giving them a comparison (such as “don’t eat beef or most fish either”), they would probably turn to even less sustainable foods, either out of ignorance, confusion, or preference. And, if we told everyone in the UK that the only sustainable animal products to eat was chicken, we would instantly make chicken an unsustainable food source.

It’s just not that easy to be sustainable. There are very few clear, sustainable solutions (quitting smoking is probably a safe bet). It’s probably safe to say that not eating anything–or even committing suicide–is more sustainable behavior but I don’t think anyone would suggest it and, it’s unrealistic to expect people to follow that advice anyway. It’s not easy for people to see why a few people doing something is OK (which is often the case) but when everyone follows suit, it’s a catastrophe (the classic tragedy of the commons case). If we’re not going to control every aspect of everyone’s like (and I hope we don’t), we can’t assume responsibility over even seemingly simply choices. Instead, we need to link behavior with consequence, educate people as much as we can, and then allow people to make their choices–and live with them.

The need for profitability may not necessarily hinder activism then – so long as the goals are reasonable. Sometimes fate and “this day and age” favor the unsustainable due to pricing conditions, tradition, and lax laws among other reasons. Vinyl definitely falls into this category – so there’s manufacturers intentionally avoiding it for ethical reasons and still make good money. Scenarios and examples abound.

and yes, I find myself wondering to what extent businesses can be activists–and the book really made me think a lot about that. There are clearly many examples of businesses that are activist and/or business people who are activists either from within their businesses or alongside them. But I just keep coming back to the idea that ultimately the need for profit will unfavorably constrain activism.

Activism ends when the “win-win” dynamic runs out, so activism therefore ultimately conforms to profit needs. Does this mean an activist business that ignores the “win-win” constraint is in essence a social enterprise? They shift from the “profit maximization” mode to a mode where they “do good without making a loss.”

Concerning design consultancy then the question becomes, for practices that take on mostly charitable or public projects, are they already essentially social enterprises?

I liked the book a lot as a reference point for design models and strategies. As you mentioned, Nathan most often explained “how things are” (systemic view), while only here and there delving into the normative. That can easily be understood given the diversity of product/service design scenarios, however a bit more of a hard stance at times (activist role) could be appreciated.