Skills for Planet Learning Lab
Strengthening designers’ capacity to respond to climate, biodiversity and social challenges through design.
Designers have a vital role to play in enabling green, inclusive growth.
The Skills for Planet Learning Lab supports entry-level and mid-career designers through a blend of online and in-person learning experiences, helping you work with clients to meet environmental goals while creating commercial and social value.
Based on the Skills for Planet Blueprint, the Lab develops the knowledge, skills and confidence needed to think and act systemically, adopt circular design strategies, increase biodiversity, reduce emissions, empower communities and engage responsibly with emerging technologies. It supports designers to make more informed decisions, influence practice and contribute meaningfully to climate, biodiversity and social outcomes.
The first collection of learning experiences has been created by design educators and industry leaders, offering opportunities to build and apply green skills in real-world contexts across public, private and third-sector settings. These webinars, workshops and masterclasses are free for a limited time and mark the first step in the Lab's ambition to reshape lifelong learning for the design sector.
Online learning
ONLINE LEARNING
Thinking and acting in systems
You can’t solve a problem with the same thinking that caused it. Systems thinking enables designers to zoom out from their individual perspectives and take informed action. This webinar introduces you to systems thinking and why it’s important, before exploring systems change and how to take action in systems as a designer. An additional webinar provides you with an overview of ‘systems speak’, helping you get to grips with systems lingo.
ONLINE LEARNING
Communicating the value of green design
Translating the value of green design to clients is a vital skill that can help designers reshape briefs, so that their work provides value for the planet, alongside economic and social value. This short webinar provides an overview of six points to cover in conversations with business, government or other clients.
ONLINE LEARNING
Ecological design thinking
This webinar series explores ecological literacy and the critical systems thinking needed to understand design's role in addressing environmental and socio-ecological challenges. Moving beyond technical skills, the series invites you to see human activity as part of living systems, and to engage with ecological design thinking as a foundation for meaningful regenerative change.
RESOURCE
Circular seeing: A learning resource for designing circular futures
Activate circular futures through your design practice by rethinking your relationship to value, materials, care and community. This learning resource takes you through a reflective ideation process that involves storytelling and design challenges, enabling you to explore possibilities for adopting a circular approach and, as a result, discover local levers for change. You can use this resource independently or collaboratively.
In-person learning
in-person WORKSHOPS
Systems mapping methods
Working with a systems-orientation demands new and different practices from designers. In this workshop series you will build your skills in systems mapping. Starting with a light introduction to the theory underpinning each tool, you will then practice mapping aspects of systems that aid in problem articulation and designing interventions.
IN-PERSON WORKSHOP
Designing for circularity
This two-day, in-person workshop is for designers looking to adopt circular design strategies. The workshop will introduce contemporary academic and skills-based thinking within circular design, supporting you to develop your own circular vision: a ‘manifesto’ considering materials, product lifespan and waste minimisation models. Located in Bath, in England’s Southwest region, you will explore this topic as part of a ‘circular ecosystem’ that is deeply embedded in place.
IN-PERSON WORKSHOPS
Design for net zero
The transition to a regenerative economy will be won or lost based on the choices we make today. For designers, this means that the decisions we make require an ability to critically interpret, question and apply environmental evidence. In this course, we will explore net zero by closely looking at how life cycle data is requested, made, verified, packaged and then travels as an influencing force through institutions and to the public.
IN-PERSON MASTERCLASS
Co-creation with communities
How designers show up in communities matters. Co-creation requires open communication and an ability to navigate difference and conflict. In this two-day masterclass you will develop techniques that enable good collaborative processes and will practice these through a co-creation project that builds your capacity to co-create in a way that amplifies justice and equity.
Our partners
Skills for Planet Training
Upskill your organisations with green design skills for the future.
Work with us
Use design to unlock opportunities, solve complex challenges and grow capability.
Design for Planet
This is our mission and a call to action to put the planet at the heart of design.
Better business by design
Five ways leading businesses are harnessing design to solve business problems.
Support us
As the UK’s national charity for design and its critical role in effecting change, we need your help.
