The Design Council has announced its plans to upskill 1 million British designers with ‘green design skills’ by 2030.
The ambition it says is to harness hosting the 2025 World Design Congress, as a ‘catalytic moment’ with a lasting impact for the UK, creating a mass upskilling legacy, equipping designers to use their skills to ‘fuel the green transition’ and position the UK as the global leader in ‘designing for planet’.
The plan sees the Design Council partner with 20 design and education organisations, with who it will be working with for the next 12-months to co-design what these green skills are and what the upskilling programme needs to look like.
These bodies include the Design and Technology Association and National Society for Education in Art and Design, exam boards AQA, Pearson, OCR, engineering bodies IET and EngineeringUK, and creative bodies RIBA, Crafts Council and Design Business Assocation, and will lead to a blueprint for the renewal of the design and technology (D&T) GCSE course to advise government on an essential curriculum change.
The mission will include the weight of bid partners such as the Design Museum, Creative Industries Council, DBA, AHRC, Innovate UK, and leading universities that are World
Design Organisation members, RCA, Westminster University and the University of Greenwich.
The ‘Blueprint for Renewal’ paper will outline recommendations for how to overhaul the current GCSE course, which has been in decline since 2010 (67% drop since 2010).
Minnie Moll, CEO of the Design Council, said: “The World Design Congress in 2025 provides a rare opportunity for the UK government and design industry to show global leadership in harnessing the power of design for the green transition. Design is a core green skill. That is both ‘frontline’ design skills of using, and re-using, natural resources more efficiently, and indeed replenishing them, and ‘hearts and minds’ design skills, making regenerative lifestyles the easier, attractive and inclusive option.”
