Bevolo: Philips Design - design mission

Our mission as being the design force of Philips, is to think about design in order to generate the solutions that are sustainable and they are sustainable at three levels: Environmental level, I would say, this is almost the hygiene factor, these days. Clearly, when you create a product, you must think about the process by which the product will be substituted and so on. At social level, so thinking about design, there is an essay by Marciano, 'Chocolate for breakfast' from the early nineties, where he makes a comparison between the current status of the Western world and the state of the aristocracy in Milan before the French Revolution is described by the poet Parini, and the aristocratic guys in Milan were just enjoying breakfast with chocolate while there was the revolution outside. From a social point of view, it's a matter of trying to push the agenda of design to redefine its role and to deliver those solutions that not only are environmentally sound, but also incorporate the fact that maybe there is a social impact that needs to be managed. And the last one is related to the artificial environment, so if you look at design almost as a political act, as Marciano defines it in this essay, which has the power, or it has the ambition, it strives to change the world, it can change the environment, our world around us, the nature, our natural world, it can help to manage issues at a social level, but essentially the relationship between us as people and our artificial environment is where design can make a difference, especially when it is coming from a high-technology company like Philips is, at corporation level.