Hey Climate Designers, This month we are focused on one of the many ways futures work intersects with creative practice: speculative design. Speculative design is a way of using design to explore possible futures, rather than only responding to problems that already exist. It often starts with the simple question of what if? Designers can then use imagined scenarios, services, or objects to make those futures feel more tangible. A speculative object might be something as ordinary as a...
30 days ago • 8 min read
Hey Climate Designers, As we near the end of summer, heat is on the mind. It's been a hot, fiery season. And it won’t be the last. In the words of Anya Kamenetz, These Fires Will Burn for 100 Years. It's heavy, but it's also a moment full of possibility and collective purpose. What does designing for a hotter world look like? What past practices and future innovations will keep us cool as things continue to warm? In urban design there are of course the thermal design principles we’ve known...
2 months ago • 8 min read
Hey Climate Designers, We hope you’re staying cool in the heatwaves, and enjoying all that summer has to offer. We're coming to you this month with a request from the organization. Everything that we do here is powered by volunteers and offered for free to the community. Our newsletter, our podcast, our educational resources, our online gatherings. We want to keep it that way. But to do so we need your help. Our bank account is running low. Our expenses are modest and donations exclusively go...
3 months ago • 6 min read
Hey Climate Designers, The summer has gotten off to a scorching start, and we’re wishing everyone experiencing extreme heat some respite. It’s a pressing reminder of why we are all here doing what we do. This work can be taxing, so in the midst of it all we are wishing you some joy, play, and relaxation this season to reset. A note from our editor Natalie here. I write most of our features, and in the spirit of reset will be keeping the newsletter short and sweet this summer. Don’t worry,...
4 months ago • 6 min read
Hey Climate Designers, This month we are taking a hiatus from our learning series on resource library perspectives to share some reflections from the survey we ran earlier this year. If you missed the past few issues of this newsletter, we encourage you to check them out. Each issue is packed with resources and inspiration: Systemic design issue and resource guide Circular design issue and resource guide Regenerative design issue and resource guide Survey Reflections Climate Designers ran its...
5 months ago • 7 min read
Hey Climate Designers, Welcome back to the next installment in our new series focusing on different ways to look at systems change and design. These topics are following along with the perspectives in our Resource Library, and next up is regenerative design. Regenerative design goes beyond sustainability to actively restore, renew, and revitalize natural ecosystems and human communities. Instead of merely reducing negative impacts, regenerative design is focused on the creation of...
6 months ago • 8 min read
Hey Climate Designers, Welcome back to the next installment in our new series that focuses on different ways to look at systems change and design, following along with the perspectives in our Resource Library. Next up is circular design. The circular economy is a system where materials never become waste and are kept in constant circulation. It replaces the linear take-make-waste cycle with closed-loop systems that cycle materials through strategies such as repair, reuse, and recycling....
7 months ago • 8 min read
Hey Climate Designers, In the coming months, each of our newsletters will focus on a different way of looking at systems change and design, following along with the perspectives in our Climate Designers Resource Library. If you haven’t seen the Resource Library before, check it out! To begin, we will start with the broadest perspective of them all, thinking in systems. Systems theory has a ton of permutations and schools of thought, but at the core it’s the study of interconnected component...
8 months ago • 7 min read
Hey Climate Designers, As we enter 2026, we are reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going. For those who might be new here, we’d like to take a moment to re-introduce ourselves. We launched in 2019 with a mission to empower designers to learn, connect, and act on climate. We bring all design disciplines together with the goal of fundamentally reshaping the design industry to put climate at the core of every designer’s work. Over the years we've run virtual summits, in-person design...
9 months ago • 4 min read