Institutions and Partner Organisations

Institute of Directors Ireland (IoD), Institute of Directors Northern Ireland (IoD NI), Creative Futures Academy (CFA), National College of Art and Design (NCAD) Institute of Art, Design + Technology Dun Laoghaire (IADT), University College Dublin (UCD)

Description

Creative Boardroom: Collaborate4Climate is a partnership between Creative Futures Academy (CFA), the Institute of Directors Ireland (IoD), and the Institute of Directors in Northern Ireland, funded through Creative Ireland’s Climate Action & Shared Island fund. A  project key objective was to reshape behaviours and attitudes so that participants felt empowered to promote change. Using an iterative design-led process, this programme sought to develop strategies that promote change at the boardroom level within companies and organisations across the Island of Ireland. Central to this dialogue was the voice and perspective of future generations, taking an intergenerational approach, the programme harnessed the expertise and collective imagination of Ireland’s Chartered Director and CFA student communities.

Creative Boardroom: Collaborate4Climate focused on the four complex systems—transport and mobility, the built environment, agriculture and food, and textiles that contribute most significantly to our carbon emissions. It aimed to educate, collaborate, motivate and innovate.

The initiative brought together the creative expertise of three higher education institutions: UCD, IADT and NCAD. Academic leads from NCAD and IADT developed an in-depth series of workshops combining design processes with expert insight into climate-related challenges and solutions. These showcased innovative approaches and demonstrated how climate challenges can be addressed and reframed as opportunities.

From the outset, Creative Boardroom: Collaborate4Climate sought to generate a community of agents for positive climate change – creative climate champions – among boardroom company directors, across the island of Ireland, North and South. It fostered a Community of Practice between the 24 Chartered Directors and 20 Students, that sought to reshape behaviours and attitudes so that participants felt empowered to promote change within their direct spheres of influence, and beyond their immediate authority, both as leaders and community collaborators. The programme was built around the following three pillars to build understanding, incite action and inspire others:

Know — Have a common understanding of the urgency for change and the key principles and frameworks associated with sustainability and the circular economy.

Act — Feel empowered to act and to practically use design thinking tools to collectively and inclusively approach challenges, and develop new solutions.

Shout — Feel motivated and inspired to spread the word to communities of interest, and lead change locally.

Using design thinking as a core methodology to unpack complex climate challenges,  the programme built a shared understanding of the scale of the challenge and provided practical tools: journey mapping; bright star matrix; how might we enquiry;  iceberg modelling and more to navigate this complexity.

For most chartered directors, the programme was a timely introduction to creative processes and design-led methodologies that brought a new way to unpack the challenges they face. The voice of the students carried young and energetic perspectives on how challenges could be addressed and brought into sharp focus the need for immediate and sustained action to safeguard their future.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Creative Boardroom: Collaborate4Climate succeeded in building a replicable and scalable model for climate-focused collaboration. It offered a new standard for board-level climate leadership—one that integrates creativity, diverse perspectives, and practical action. The output of the programme was an exhibition that can now travel and is downloadable on the Creative Boardroom website for others to view and display. There was also an extensive Evaluation Report produced, which serves as a guide and offers an assessment of the successes and challenges.

The momentum generated now extends beyond the programme itself, catalysing ongoing dialogue and change across the island of Ireland. The programme is a call to lead with purpose, to act with imagination, and to collaborate across generations, sectors, and borders for a sustainable future.

Teaching and Learning Approach

Design thinking is a creative process for solving problems. It relies on observing, with empathy, how people interact with their environments, and employs an iterative, hands-on approach to creating innovative solutions to various problems. Taking a design-led approach helped to unpack the overwhelmingly complex challenges of climate change creatively at a manageable scale.

Using the Design Council UK’s Double Diamond framework (Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver), participants tackled climate challenges with empathy, creativity, and systemic insight.

This approach enabled them to promote understanding of circular strategies to reduce emissions, identify tailored, viable climate solutions and foster cross-sector collaboration as well as embed innovation in strategy and practice.

In working with this group in a creative, engaging, evidence-based, and systematic way, the programme encouraged dialogue, engagement, understanding, and positive action.

Assessment Strategy

There were 5 main workshops during which students and directors were guided through exercises that focused on exchanging ideas and uncovering opportunities. After each workshop, students took away their learnings to be explored visually as part of their regular studio work. Led by the communication design lecturers, the students focused on delivering visual communications strategies and prototypes to identified challenges. These primarily addressed food waste, behavioural change and awareness of fast fashion and textile waste.

During the programme, students gained an understanding of how, as designers, they can have agency. The peer-to-peer interaction with Directors was critical to developing their understanding of the world of work and legal and regulatory constraints.

Impact and Outcomes

Students used their learnings to explore solutions related to their third-year communications design coursework.  From the students’ perspective, the programme was an insightful and empowering journey. Engaging in intergenerational collaboration and applying design thinking across intensive workshops helped them deepen their understanding of the systemic nature of the climate emergency and gain valuable insights into the real-world barriers to change and how collaborative approaches can overcome them. A recurring reflection among students was the realisation that design is not just an aesthetic tool, but an effective vehicle for sparking real change, giving them a new sense of voice and agency for driving real-world impact. Their exposure to the workings of the business community, facilitated by direct collaboration with the Directors, proved invaluable, fostering a new appetite to become changemakers and influence their peers.

Collaboration, Partnerships & Student Participation

Students were nominated by NCAD and IADT faculty and given a design brief. The brief invited them to consider specific challenges relating to two core systems: agriculture and food and consumables (with textile waste as a focus). Over the course of the programme, students iterated, prototyped and tested ideas and presented their solutions to the Chartered Directors. A selection of their proposals we showcased at the concluding exhibition in NCAD.

The Director participants were Chartered Directors from organisations such as Viatris, EirGrid, ESB, BDO, RTB, Uisce Éireann, An Bord Plenala, JCDecaux and Best Menswear, to name just a few. They learned how to identify the common barriers blocking change at the boardroom level and develop new ways forward, considering ESG factors in relation to company sustainability and ethical impacts.

In addition to the student, director and academic contributions, the programme brought together chartered directors, students, artists, designers, entrepreneurs and innovators.  A significant number of national and international experts contributed to the programme.

Student Engagement

• 20 students participated in the programme: 18 NCAD undergraduate and 2 IADT postgraduate.
• 24 Chartered Directors participated in the programme as CPD.
• 800 visitors including students visited the exhibition in the National College of Art and Design throughout November and December 2024.

Discipline

Arts and Humanities

Best Practices & Resources

Top Tips

• Consider your learners: For students, the onboarding process was essential. Two chartered directors (also members of the CBC4C steering group) participated in the onboarding session to explain the role and responsibilities of Chartered Directors, the organisations they represent, ESG regulation and requirements, the aims of the overall programme and how students could meaningfully contribute. A similar process was followed to onboard the Chartered Directors.
• Be prepared to iterate and flex! The initial approach to the climate challenge was broad. It focused on the 4 key systems pillars: Food & Agriculture, Mobility and Transport, Consumables (Textiles) and The Built Environment. Midway through the project, the design team and steering group realised that additional workshops were needed so that practical and actionable steps could be identified to use in a boardroom context.
• Learning Environments are important: The project used multiple sites for workshops, these included corporate settings: An Post, ESB HQ and the IDA combined with spaces in NCAD, UCD and IADT. This helped to contextualise and embed understanding of the environments within which this intergenerational group operated.

Useful Resources

• Creative Boardroom website – Phase 1 https://creativefuturesacademy.ie/partnerproject/creative-boardroom-collaborate4climate-phase1/
• A digital version of this exhibition is available to download here: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://creativefuturesacademy.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Creative-Boardroom-Collaborate4Climate-Exhibition-2024.pdf
• A full Evaluation Report of this Programme is available here: https://creativefuturesacademy.ie/news/creative-boardroom-collaborate4-climate-phase-1-evaluation-report/

Funding Details

Creative Boardroom: Collaborate4Climate was funded through the Creative Ireland Climate Action and Shared Ireland funds. It was delivered by Creative Futures Academy under the auspices of the National College of Art & Design in partnership with The Institute of Directors in Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

About the authors

name: Laura Magahy

institution: Forvis Mazars

Public Sector Consulting Lead at Forvis Mazars and Creative Boardroom Chair

name: Louise Allen

institution: National College of Art and Design

Louise Allen is the Director of the Creative Futures Academy at the National College of Art and Design.

name: Karen Sugrue Hennessy

institution: Real Leaf Farm

Chief Executive Officer at Real Leaf Farm, Non Executive Director

name: Sheila Byrne

institution: Institute of Directors in Ireland

Head of Learning & Education at Institute of Directors in Ireland

name: Heather White

institution: Institute of Directors

Nations Manager · Institute of Directors (IoD), Northern Ireland

name: Gwen Cunningham

institution: National College of Art and Design

Sustainability and Circularity Lead, NCAD

name: Karl Toomey

institution: National College of Art and Design

Assistant Lecturer, Communication Design, NCAD

name: Claire Campion

institution: National College of Art and Design

Assistant Lecturer, Communication Design, NCAD

name: Lara Hanlon

institution: Institute of Art, Design and Technology

Systems Lead and Design Thinking Lecturer – Institute of Art, Design + Technology Dun Laoghaire (IADT)

name: Bernie McCoy

institution: National College of Art and Design

Academic Lead – National College of Art and Design (NCAD)

name: Pace Borza Butterly

institution: Creative Futures Academy

Communications Lead, Creative Futures Academy

name: Ciara Layden

institution: Creative Futures Academy

Creative Boardroom Coordinator, Creative Futures Academy