what we are

Team D/E/S  grew out of the research, consulting and education activities of the EcoDesign Foundation in the 1990s.

Today, Team D/E/S pursues the aim of "developing ecological sustainment" - that's what our initials stand for - through collaborative projects, education, writing, publishing and consulting.

The Principals of Team D/E/S, Tony Fry and Anne-Marie WIllis, are established leaders, with reputations for combining innovative thinking and practical action.

The idea of sustainment is central to what we do.

* A sustainment is something that has been designed to advance society’s ability to sustain the conditions of interdependence upon which the future depends. A sustainment might be a product, a policy, a work practice, a building or a built environment, or even a new industry. A sustainment is an incremental action taken now towards enhancing society’s ability to sustain itself and that with which it interacts and upon which it depends — including the relations between the natural and the artificial; the material and the immaterial; the economic and the cultural. ‘Sustainment’ is a concept alert to, and directive of, change and process. It is more aware of time than the more familiar idea of ‘sustainable development'.

We’ve worked with managers of large and small companies, with engineers, architects, planners, project managers, product designers and manufacturers. We’ve advised policy makers, university educators, professional and non-government organisations.

We have highly developed skills as researchers, writers, presenters, advocates, communicators and designers.

We bring considerable capability in social, cultural, economic and environmental analysis to the tasks we do.

We are not frightened to present radical ideas or to engage in rigorous thought. 

We are just as practical as we are creative.

In sum Team D/E/S is about creating a new kind of practice that brings a variety of design and management activities together to create something with a greater ability to deliver the conditions of sustainment than existing design practices.