Charlene Sequeira
Climate Designer working at the intersection of design, education, and sustainability
I am a Designer and Strategist who uses design to facilitate better ‘ways of being’ with each other and the natural world. Having worked in multiple design fields across 4 countries, I currently work for RISD with the Center for Complexity and Strategic Programs where I help develop skills and mindset needed to address complex systemic issues through the programs we deliver. Currently working with a sustainable seafood startup in Mumbai called Blucatch, I focus my ongoing design and consulting work on embedding sustainable design practices holistically in organizations. My past work has addressed issues around single-use plastics, the omission of minority-cultures in mainstream-curriculum, and systems design. My work has been featured at Pratt Institutes Sustainable Crash Course, Pratt Green Week, and the European Academy of Design Conference 2019 in Dundee - Scotland.
Projects
I approached a non-profit organization in India called INECC - Indian Network on Ethics and Climate Change with the opportunity to reposition themselves more authentically as a network that focuses on ethics and Climate Change. As their Design Consultant, I redesigned their logo and created a visual style guide to communicate their energy and drive in bringing a multiplicity of marginalized voices to the Climate Change conversation.
My work for this project included building communication strategies that would lower the organizations' carbon footprint using green graphic design and printing, and creating a low-carbon website using sustainable UI/UX methods. The main aim, keeping in line with the Paris Agreement as well as India's commitment to reduce their emissions, was to keep “lowering our own carbon footprint while we help others” as the top priority both on and offline.
Compassionate Systems Design Framework
“How do we build authentic value systems that create more sustainable ways of life?” was the question that guided my final masters thesis at Pratt Institute. Using cultural celebrations as a point of intervention, I developed a semester-long curriculum (tool kit and educators guide) called ‘Compassionate Systems Design’ that addressed the much-needed shift in our collective culture towards more sustainable ways of living. Besides the cascading negative impact from commercializing celebrations, the many positive social values associated with cultural celebrations make them profound points of intervention to fuse sustainable and cultural values and thus become potential catalysts of behavioral change.
The concept of ‘Compassionate Systems Design’ is proposed as a lens to explore and reconstruct more positive levels of sustainability within cultural celebrations. When compassion guides the valuation and design process at its core, more holistic and equitable sustainability solutions are developed. A multidimensional dialogue is framed where high-school students use a compassionate and reflective model of value assessment and cultural recreation to collaboratively re-imagine sustainable celebrations of their authentic values while being mindful of their impact on other interdependent communities and ecosystems. This framework aims to cultivate individual, community, and environmental values that are mutually beneficial and sustainable and could be used by design students, in community centers, and as community outreach workshops by cultural institutions.