The sustainability challenge presents a considerable threat to human and ecological wellbeing in the 21st century. There are numerous efforts underway that address sustainability, such as Biomimicry, Cradle to Cradle, and The Natural Step. Many of these approaches could benefit from different processes to motivate individuals and organizations to better understand and creatively apply sustainability principles. Gaming has proven to be one such methodology.
The goals of this thesis project are to develop a board game using The Natural Step’s Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, and to assess the effectiveness of the game by its ability to engage people in generating sustainable solutions.
The result of this project was the development of a prototype board game that was tested with three different groups. Each group played the game and provided feedback on their experience. The prototype provided insights on the benefits of games as learning tools, as well as the need to modify the design to better fulfill its goal of encouraging creative and strategic ideation processes.
As an outcome of my experience developing this thesis project, I learned the importance of developing new ways to engage people to achieve sustainable goals. More research and experimentation is still needed to document the adequate use of games as a tool for sustainable development.