AMBITION LEVELS

Key takeaways

The four level of ambition with respect to pursuing sustainable development through designing, staging and managing experiences.

For each ambition level, obvious routes and opportunities to integrate sustainability principles into the design of the experience that will be staged are discussed and illustrated.

On what level would you like to operate on?

Ambition Level 1

A way of integrating this ambition into the design of these experiences is to include this ambition as an objective in the first step of the design process.

What is going to be the objective to reduce its negative environmental impact?

... relates to reducing the negative environmental impact associated with staging experiences for your customers.

The actual environmental impact of the experience you stage can be related to both the tangible and intangible components of the various touch points of the customer journey(s) offered to customers.

Once an objective has been set, you will need to specify this objective in more detail in the setting requirements step.

What type of decoration is used to shape the physical context for a specific touch point?

Some types of decoration come with significantly less environmental impact.

EXAMPLE

Ambition Level 2

... relates to not only addressing the environmental impact of experiences staged but also their social and economic consequences.

Businesses and professionals who aim for a contribution to sustainable development at this ambition level account for their overall impact with respect to the well-known triple bottom line, which consists out of people, planet, and profit

They do so without necessarily changing their core product or business model but they do usually aim at moving beyond simply reducing their negative impacts and also aim to make positive contributions.

Breakfast a la carte instead of a buffet, leasing machines instead of buying

The social component, the wellbeing and working conditions of staff is primarily looked at.

EXAMPLE

Designing events to contribute to local entrepreneurs.

Creating jobs for locals who struggle with finding a job, due to physical or mental disabilities.

Ambition Level 3

... relates to changing the business model into a so-called or societal business mode, which specifically aims at creating economic value through creating societal value.

The logic and benefits of making sure that the specifics address in and outcomes created by one design process feed into other design processes used for coming up with the experiences you will be staging for various stakeholders involved with or affected by the business activities.

The company still wants to make a profit, but keeps in mind the social, environmental and economic impacts for a full account (more about creating social value, instead of profit).

Ambition Level 4

... relates to staging experiences as part of an (explicit) effort to put our societies on a (more) sustainable course by creating (local, regional or global) alternatives to our current socio-economic system.

It focuses on being sustainable, like non-profit organisation.

REFERENCING


Smit, B., and Melissen, F., 2018. Sustainable Customer Experience Design. Oxon and New York: Routledge.

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