This paper introduces design tools and approaches developed to invite and support higher levels of synergy in collaborative practice. The tools that are introduced through three individual cases have been used to prompt a proactive and imaginative engagement with the sustainability imperative.

These individual cases challenge the very boundaries of design. The idea of ‘metadesign’ is adopted to advocate design that operates at systemic levels, that invites interdisciplinary collaborations and that seeds or sets up the conditions for emergent processes of change.

The cases represent the fashion industry at mass-market level in Sweden and the UK, the design, production and export of home furnishings in Indonesia, and an (AHRC) funded interdisciplinary design project in the UK entitled ‘Benchmarking Synergy levels within Metadesign’.