Applying Design Thinking to Drive Innovation and Sustainability Goals

This essay defines design thinking as a critical approach to addressing sustainability challenges and explores the concept of innovation as the translation of ideas into valuable goods or services. It outlines the design thinking process, emphasizing empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing. The essay also discusses the relationship between innovation and a design mindset, highlighting how design thinking combines technological possibilities, customer needs, and business requirements to facilitate innovation. It positions a design mindset as a crucial skill for future workplaces, emphasizing that innovation is not merely a technical problem but a way of thinking that orients individuals toward innovative activities. The paper references several works that support the claims.