SUSTAINABILITY BY DESIGN

How to design responsibly in industry 5.0

- IDr. Carla Mae D. Leonor, PIID, CIP

The design world is shifting—again. With the rise of Industry 5.0, we are moving beyond smart automation and digital efficiency to something more profound: a humanity-centered, sustainability-driven future.

Coined as the fifth industrial revolution, it is a new phase that combines creativity with advanced technology to improve efficiency, sustainability, and productivity. This new era challenges designers, architects, and innovators to rethink the way we create spaces, products, and experiences.

Sustainability is thrown around as a theme, concept, or mission, but beyond buzzwords, Sustainability is layered. So often it is reduced to a checklist—using eco-friendly materials, eliminating plastic, or reducing carbon footprints. While these are important, they only scratch the surface.

Sustainability, as everyone is realizing now, is no longer an option and no longer just about reducing waste; it's about designing systems that regenerate, restore, and rethink our relationship and interaction with the environment.

For years, sustainability has been boxed into superficial actions—replacing plastics, choosing eco-friendly materials, or reducing energy consumption. While these are contributory to being truly circular, they are only the first few steps in a long, winding staircase. True sustainable design goes deeper, towards an approach that incorporates circularity, transparency, and longevity, ensuring that what we create today does not burden the planet and the people of tomorrow.