Green designer

Designs policies, services and systems to achieve environmental and regenerative outcomes.

Purpose

Green designers are public design professionals who help government design policies, services and systems that respond to environmental challenges.

They bring environmental considerations into public design from the outset, helping government reduce harm, work within ecological limits and create regenerative, resilient and inclusive outcomes.

Specialist Skills

The capabilities required for green design combine the seven Universal Public Design Practices with specialist skills in:

  • working with nature and regenerative design;
  • decarbonisation;
  • circular design;
  • futures.

Together, these capabilities enable green designers to understand environmental impacts across a system, consider long-term consequences and design interventions that benefit both people and the planet.

Professional Capability Framework

The school is working with the Design Council to develop the capabilities and learning pathway for green public design.

The role is informed by the Design Council’s Skills for Planet Blueprint, which identifies the critical green skills all designers need to put green design into practice and provides a shared language for developing those skills. The school’s capability framework applies this foundation to the context and responsibilities of public design.

Learning Pathway

The universal modules develop the practices shared across public design roles. The specialist modules develop the additional capability to design with nature, support decarbonisation, apply circular approaches and explore possible environmental futures.

Together, these courses cover the learning objectives expected of green designers at the relevant level. Specialist modules will be introduced progressively.