Design for Planet Festival
Let's put our planet at the centre of everything we design.
We're heading to the University of East Anglia in Norwich this 17–18 October to host the third edition of our award-winning festival that aims to mobilise the UK's powerful design community to unite efforts in addressing the climate crisis.
This year's theme COLLABORATE will bring together over 60 experts from a range of disciplines including fashion, built environment, energy, inclusivity, policy and more to empower an important cross-industry dialogue.
Join free, online workshops and panel discussions from some of the world’s most inspiring voices and talent in design and sustainability including contributions from Patagonia, TOAST, Peers for the Planet and Fairphone.
Festival partner
Festival partner
In partnership with
Our speakers
Stay tuned as we announce the full lineup of speakers in the coming months.
Bas Van Abel
Founder of Fairphone (repairable smart phone producers), will discuss how to build a deeper understanding between people and their products.
Dr Dori Tunstall
Dean of the Faculty of Design at Ontario College of Art & Design University will explore how to decolonise design practices and how collaboration can fuel innovation.
Kwajo Tweneboa
Housing Campaigner & Television Presenter will be joined by Pooja Agrawal to discuss inequitable living conditions and the need for a just and regenerative future.
Stefanie Posavec and Asher Minns
Artist & Author and Designer of Greta Thunberg's The Climate Book Stefanie Posavec will speak with Asher Minns, Science Communicator at Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Tiffanie Darke
Director of Story Futures at Story Studios will be diving into preloved fashion on demand with a conversation exploring the rise of circular platforms as a reaction to fast-fashion.
The theme of this year’s Design for Planet festival is COLLABORATE.
Collaboration is essential if we are going to design for planet. The crisis is too big for anyone to tackle on their own. It needs everyone. To work together.
Collaboration can take many different forms including: consumers, working with nature, AI development, building supply chains, cross-industry business ventures, gathering together practices of different disciplines from engineering to performing arts.
Throughout the festival, we will hear from many different practitioners from across the design industry, and will be asking them a set of questions:
- How has collaboration helped you design for planet?
- What made it easy? And what made it hard?
- Where is more collaboration needed?
- Who would be your dream collaborator?
Our curatorial board
Amplifying the importance of collaboration, we invited an inspiring group of cross-sectorial experts to help us curate this year's festival programming.
Shawn Adams
Co-Founder, POor Collective
Cat Drew
Chief Design Officer, Design Council
Alice Fisher
Journalist, The Guardian
Professor Fiona Lettice
Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of East Anglia
Natasha Trotman
Design Council Expert, Equalities Designer
Branding Design for Planet
Discover the story behind our new logo (that is actually quite an old logo!).
From archive diving to climate conscious colour choices, we've been on a journey to put our best, planet-centred design foot forward.
Catch up on previous festivals
Join the Meetup
Every month these informal get togethers focus on design and the climate emergency. We take a broad definition of design and have three speakers that take 10 minutes each to share their work, lessons learnt, skills and tools. The Meetups are held at a central London location and we provide a Zoom link for those who can't join us in person.