Teaching Nudge Strategies for Circular Design

The centrality role of designers in Sustainable Development and in the transition towards a Circular Economy derives from the consistency of his training and action with the eight basic skills identified by the “Global Program on Education for Sustainable Development” in which it emerges the necessity of lateral thinking ability and transversality (i.e in systemic thinking, anticipatory ability, collaborative action and problem solving aptitude). The designer must learn to have an "integrative capacity", a professional aptitude to play a coordinating role, integrating different contributions and, as far as possible, bringing conflictual aspects back to unity. In this paper we want to show the experiences carried out during the Advanced Course in Sustainable Products and Circular Design held at the Iuav University of Venice in the spring of 2021 and the projects that derived from it that efforts to change attitudes, behaviours, and lifestyles and which were connected to a delicate, important city, full of complex challenges and tourist flows like Venice.