Our current economic system operates on a fundamental logic of short-term profit maximization that drives unsustainable behaviour and accelerates resource depletion and climate crisis*. In this project, we have identified the key barriers preventing businesses and society from making genuine leaps toward sustainable and circular business models.​This research project aims to visualize how our economic and financial systems work today, identify and understand phenomena that make change difficult, and identify the most effective leverage points where policy can ways to drive transformative innovation. Through extensive stakeholder engagement with business leaders, finance professionals, policymakers, public sector representatives, and civil society, and with complements from literature, we’ve developed a comprehensive map of levers to stimulate change towards a sustainable system. The hope is that the results- empowered by visualizations- will contribute to transformative policymaking that creates a sustainable, safe, and sound economy operating within planetary boundaries - the environmental limits within which humanity can safely thrive.​

Our current economic system poses a threat to humanity. The project presented here mapped how current economic systems function, why they resist change, and identifies key policy leverage points through stakeholder collaboration. The objective is to promote transformative policies that establish a sustainable economy within Earth's environmental limits. ​

Fitness trackers encourage users to set goals to improve personal wellbeing, but these goals sometimes remain unmet. Understanding how improved ways of communicating failure to meet fitness goals could help prevent negative thought cycles (rumination) and avoid reduced motivation for physical activity. To address this challenge, we studied how unmet goals can be presented in apps. We designed prototypes that showed unmet fitness goals. Radial and regular bar charts, single-coloured and multicoloured were used in the study. In a survey (n = 165), we compared the four versions and a textual description of the unmet goals. Then, we conducted follow-up interviews (n = 20) to gain a detailed understanding of the perceptions and feelings evoked by the prototypes. We found that bar graphs offered a significantly better potential for reflection and multicoloured charts triggered significantly more rumination. We contribute in-depth insights into designing systems that use goals and avoid potential negative effects of personal tracking.