Exploring post-neoliberal futures for managing commercial heating and cooling through speculative praxis

TL;DR

This paper uses speculative design fiction to explore how future energy consultancies could adopt systems thinking and holistic approaches to transform commercial heating and cooling management towards sustainable, post-neoliberal futures.

Contribution

It introduces a fictional consultancy and a design fiction to demonstrate how systems-oriented, human-centred approaches can re-imagine energy management practices.

Findings

Design fiction encourages systemic thinking in energy management.

Speculative praxis can inspire new material realities for sustainability.

Future energy consultancies could adopt holistic, systems-based approaches.

Abstract

What could designing for carbon reduction of heating and cooling in commercial settings look like in the near future? How can we challenge dominant mindsets and paradigms of efficiency and behaviour change? How can we help build worlds through our practice that can become future realities? This paper introduces the fictional consultancy ANCSTRL.LAB to explore opportunities for making space in research projects that can encourage more systems-oriented interventions. We present a design fiction that asks `what if energy management and reduction practice embraced systems thinking?'. Our design fiction explores how future energy consultancies could utilise systems thinking, and (more than) human centred design to re-imagine energy management practice and change systems in ways that are currently unfathomable. We finish by discussing how LIMITS research can utilise design fiction and speculative praxis to help build new material realities where more holistic perspectives, the leveraging of systems change, and the imagining of post-neoliberal futures is the norm.