In this episode we are going to be looking at design from a whole other perspective.  We are going to zoom out to talk about how we can possibly design for new systems when we are so embedded in old ones. I’m excited to bring you a conversation with Tero Hokkanen about the challenges of designing for the circular economy. Which is a pretty hot topic right now. 

Tero is a co-founder of Systems Change Finland, an association focused on the question of how we as individuals, organisations and society can collaboratively create better systems. Currently he is working in Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Finland as a project specialist in an EU-funded Green Transition project called CEGO – Circular Economy Goes East and West. This project has been designed to support and build the capability of one of the most overlooked business segments in the push to transform to a circular economy.   

You are definitely going to want a pen and paper handy because Tero shares with us many of the important lessons he has learned along the way. He shares why the first small steps are so important in the journey to transform mindsets. He explains why we need to focus on adopting a learning attitude right now as we essentially experiment our way forwards. And why we need to think about ecosystems as a critical component of designing for large scale systems change in the midst of so much uncertainty.   

This is an incredibly rich conversation that I hope you enjoy as much as we did having it.   

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More about Tero Hokkanen: 

Tero obtained his master's degree from the University of Helsinki, where he studied environmental economics. He started his career focusing on waste-related issues both in the public and private sectors. Quite soon he started to discover that incremental problem-solving is not enough to fix the growing environmental problems we are being faced with. If we want to be truly sustainable, we need to adopt a more holistic and systemic approach. Shortly after he was part of co-founding Systems Change Finland, an association that is focused on the question of how we as individuals, organizations and as a society can better deal with complexity and how to create and shift to better systems. Currently he is working in Laurea University of Applied Sciences as a project specialist in an EU-funded project called CEGO – Circular Economy Goes East and West. The project is aiming to strengthen circular economy capabilities in SMEs, and also supporting ecosystems and enhancing systemic change toward sustainable economic activity in the Uusimaa region in Finland.   

Reach out and Connect: 

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Here can find out more about Daniella Sachs and the Impactful Design Studio. 

Thank you to Kabbalistic Village for the music!