The View from 2040
From my window at my local Community Design Hub (more on that below), I can see my students in the food forest doing their morning observation practice – sketching natural patterns, studying ecosystem relationships, and gathering inspiration for their projects. It's hard to believe that just 16 years ago, this was a parking lot and design students spent their mornings hunched over laptops in sterile classrooms.
Around that time, 2025, I was teaching my 4th year of the Climate Designers class at California College of the Arts. When climate disasters intensified in the mid-2020s, CCA, and other design schools, faced a reckoning. Students demanded that we teach them how to prepare themselves for the real challenges they are going to face after graduating, not just shiny portfolio pieces. The old curriculum of logos and layouts was irrelevant in a world of collapsing systems.
The Education Revolution (2025-2030)
The change started with a group of us teaching "Regenerative Design Thinking", combining traditional design skills with systems thinking, ecology, and indigenous wisdom. At first, our work was “too radical” for our design schools, but we persisted. As climate impacts worsened and traditional design jobs disappeared, our graduates found themselves on the front lines, supporting communities and organizations navigating transformation. This made me and my fellow design educators double down on our work.
A breakthrough came when several major design schools completely restructured around bioregional challenges. Instead of abstract briefs, students worked on real projects within their region. Typography projects became community signage for local food systems. Brand identity work focused on helping regenerative businesses thrive. UX design created community resource sharing platforms.
Design Studio Transformation (2027-2033)
Design studios faced their own existential crisis. As public sentiment turned against consumption and greenwashing, traditional/extractive clients disappeared. The studios that survived were those that had already begun transforming their business models towards a more climate-forward approach.
Around this time, Climate Designers became a key voice in helping up-skill design professionals around the world. Through online courses, meetups, and resources, we became a key player in redesigning the design industry, putting climate at the core of every designer’s work.
Our first big project was the "Regenerative Climate Design Framework", a framework that helped local and regional designers understand issues and opportunities in their area and how their work will impact both people and the planet. Instead of traditional success metrics like "awareness", "visits", and "KPIs", we measured soil health improvements, biodiversity increases, and community resilience indicators.
The Tools Revolution (2029-2035)
New tools and technologies emerged to support this shift. The "Regenerative Impact Canvas" replaced the old business model canvas, helping organizations map their regenerative potential.
The "Living Systems OS" integrated ecological data into design applications like Figma and Adobe products, showing real-time impacts of design decisions on natural systems.
But, the biggest change was a shift in mindset. Design finally abandoned its obsession with pure aesthetics, embracing principles of emergence and adaptation. We stopped trying to design perfect solutions and started creating conditions for life to thrive.
Community Design Hubs (2030-2037)
The old model of independent design studios gave way to “Community Design Hubs”, collaborative spaces where designers work alongside ecologists, farmers, community organizers, and traditional knowledge keepers. These hubs are located within walking distance of natural systems and became centers for regenerative innovation.
We balance screen time with hands-on work in our natural environment. This direct experience with living systems informs our design sessions. Project teams include both trained designers and community members, ensuring solutions are grounded in local wisdom and specific needs.
Economic Transformation (2032-2040)
The economics of design changed completely. The old hourly billing model was replaced by regenerative impact metrics. Designers became stakeholders in the regenerative outcomes of their work, earning "regenerative credits" that increase in value as ecosystems improve.
This shift was enabled by new financial tools that could measure and value regenerative outcomes. The "Regenerative Return on Investment" (RROI) framework, developed by designers and economists, finally gave us ways to quantify the true value of regenerative design work.
Daily Life in 2040
Today, design is inseparable from regeneration. Every project starts with the question,
"How can this enhance the health of living systems?"
Design tools automatically integrate ecological data. Project briefs require regenerative impact assessments. Design reviews include feedback from both human and non-human stakeholders.
The challenges we overcame
- Resistance from traditional design schools and organizations
- The challenge of developing new metrics and tools
- The need to retrain designers and others
- Financial pressures during the transition
- Skepticism about regenerative approaches
What made this work thrive
- Pressure from students and young designers
- Support from forward-thinking educators and educational institutions
- Early adoption by progressive clients
- Development of new economic models
- Practical tools and frameworks
- Community engagement and support
Looking Ahead
The work isn't finished. We're still learning how to design in harmony with living systems. But, the fundamental shift has happened. Design is now a force for regeneration rather than extraction.
The next generation of designers sees this as obvious. They can't imagine a time when design didn't consider living systems, when success didn't include regenerative impacts, when designers worked in isolation from nature and community. Regenerative design the new normal.
Onward.
This piece was created as homework for the RegenIntel Foundations course. Many of these ideas in this piece were created from exercises I did / conversations I had with fellow designers and design educators over the last few years. It was fun to dust them off and do a refresh based on what we covered in the RegenIntel course. My inspiration for some of these ideas are from the documentary 2040.
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