Around the globe, responsible design has become a critical priority among businesses and design professionals. Reflecting this trend, the Executive Perspective becomes an opportunity to look at three major programmes: the Design Council in the United Kingdom, the Norwegian Design Council, and the IDSA in the United States.

In the UK: A Vision from the Design Council.

The Design Council endeavours to improve prosperity and wellbeing in the UK by inspiring and enabling the best use of design. This is achieved by demonstrating to managers in both the public and private sectors the practical benefits that design can bring to their organisations. The Design Council helps managers to develop a clear vision and strategy; to identify and satisfy their users; to articulate their brands; to address the cultural and process issues facing them; and to incorporate sustainability into their strategies.

Design has but one responsibility - to create economic, social, and aesthetic value. The caveat is that it must answer to all here criteria in equal measure. While there is nothing wrong with design that makes the heart beat a little faster (who objects to that frisson of delight upon encountering a truly beautifully designed object?), that joy comes at a price. There are often unseen costs associated with the system that produces and delivers the object or the infrastructure necessary to support and retrieve it that render the appreciation of the object pointless, and in some cases irresponsible...

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