Designers have an important role to play to help avoid climate catastrophe, write Alexie Sommer and Ella Doran of new environmental collective URGE.

If you've got half an eye on the climate agenda then you'll know that in October 2018, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted that we have just 12 years to limit catastrophic climate change that will make life on earth very challenging.
In July 2019, key leaders described the next 18 months as critical in setting the agenda; we now have 6 months to instigate new behaviours and designers can help lead the way.
Designers, as a rule, love unravelling the nitty-gritty of a specific problem, then designing a nice neat solution that helps solve that problem. Climate change isn't one of those problems: it's systemic and deeply complicated leaving the best of us motionless at times, and uncertain of which way to turn. URGE is not a think tank ? we connect the thinking and doing and drive change
Now that climate change is urgent, with less than a decade's window of opportunity, society needs all the help it can get to understand the problem, our role within it, and develop solutions that can enact effective change.
This is where URGE comes in. We're a multi-disciplinary collective working with businesses and organisations to envision and enact radical responses to the climate emergency. URGE is not a think tank. We connect the thinking and doing and drive change through transformation, education, innovation and commu...