World Design Congress 2025 and an idea that’s time has come
1970s protest pin, featured in the Radical Media Archive
World Design Congress (WDC) has just ended in London’s Barbican. Since 1959, WDC has happened every two years in cities around the world. This year’s is the first to focus on ‘Design for Planet’ — which is a) long overdue, but b) so welcome.
From the outset, it felt different to the same-old sustainability echo-chamber. Perhaps, I imagine, because design exists to change things. it is a creative act of questioning why things are the way they are, and offering a way of improving them.
Which is precisely how Nature on the Board came about. Inspired by the wider Rights of Nature movement, we questioned why those same frameworks couldn’t also be implemented within corporate structures. Specifically, we looked at the Whanganui river being recognised as a legal person and wondered why Nature couldn’t also be granted rights within Faith In Nature.
And while I prepared to make this case in my panel discussion ‘Designing with Nature’, I saw how far this conversation has already spread. First Leyla Acaroglu made exactly this point in the opening keynote of the second day, speaking to the power of the Rights of Nature movement, the recognition of the Whanganui as a legal person and Nature on the Board in action — both at Faith in Nature and House of Hackney. A short while later, Julia Watson also mentioned the Whanganui and the importance of this same Rights of Nature discourse. Later, Cecilia Brenner closed her panel with the recommendation that all organisations give Nature a voice within their governance structures. And a little after that, Indy Johar did much the same in asking us to move from ‘ego structure’ to ‘eco structure’.
Leyla Acaroglu in Day 2’s opening keynote
Nature on the Board is an idea that’s time has come. Not just in the sense that it is needed, but that it is now being platformed at such a level, by so many people. Awareness has been snowballing for a while. I can only hope that action now follows. I said when we first launched this initiative at Faith In Nature that ‘this becomes meaningful when it’s not just doing it’. Our role in this was primarily to prove this can work within the private sector. Three years in, we’ve proven that — and will shortly release our third annual report of working with Nature on Faith In Nature’s board. Others are joining. And since National Infrastructure Commission for Wales has also implemented the move, hopefully we will soon see that it can work in the public sector too.
Of course, there will be sceptics. Others who will always see this as insanity. But, to my mind, those who can see the need for this type of model must implement it. The more of us do, the more we can learn from one another, improve it, tighten it, increase its take-up amongst our wider networks to the point where, one day, it might reach critical mass.
But what is critical mass? At this stage, I don’t know. But, as ever, my partner Anne has a way of pre-empting these questions. On the morning before WDC began, she shared with me the 1970s pin badge at the header of this blog. Perhaps critical mass is just all the small fish realising that, together, we can organise ourselves in such a way that we can take on the old destructive systems that have destroyed the natural world and driven us to where we are today.
But one or two small fish can’t do this on their own. It takes a whole lot of small fish. And as I looked around that Barbican auditorium, it really felt like we were beginning to ORGANIZE! As Brian Eno said in his talk “To make change, we have to find others”.
‘Nature on the Board’ is not the end-point for this.! It’s a start point. By putting in place such frameworks, we invite the wisdom of those who have so long been shut out of the boardroom. It is their ideas we need to hear and that will, hopefully, fill future gatherings like this one.
Not so side-note: if, at this point, you’re nodding along and can see the sense in the point an increasing number of us are trying to make, Faith In Nature’s open source model is hosted here.
And in January, Bristol University Press will be publishing my book, ‘Nature’s Boardroom’ — intended as a concise handbook for any organisation looking to give Nature a voice. If you can get it into the right hands, please do.