Maps That Matter: Design as a Translation tool in Industrial Sustainability Transitions

This paper explores how organizational design can support sustainability transitions in complex industrial contexts, through the development of situated, visual tools. The study is based on a oneyear design intervention within a railway maintenance facility in France, aiming to improve industrial waste sorting practices following the departure of the site's waste manager.

Drawing from system design, service design, and Actor-Network Theory, the project approaches waste management not as a technical issue, but as a socio-material system of routines, infrastructures, and tacit knowledge. To navigate this complexity, the design team produced a series of hybrid documents-field enquiry maps, analog and digital cartographies, and a systemic waste itinerary-that supported both observation and transformation.

These documents are analyzed as translation devices that make visible the often-invisible flows, frictions, and organizational logics structuring the field. Beyond their descriptive value, they acted as mediating and performative artefacts-supporting stakeholder alignment, operational decisionmaking, and strategic reframing.

By examining how these representations shaped understanding and action, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions on the role of design in enabling sustainability transitions. It highlights how representational tools can serve as scaffolds for systemic intervention, especially in infrastructureheavy and operationally constrained environments. The article also reflects on the evolving role of designers as facilitators of alignment between long-term visions and everyday practices.

Delphine Wang Leger, Annie Gentes. Maps That Matter: Design as a Translation tool in Industrial Sustainability Transitions. IASDR 2025, Dec 2025, Taipei, Taiwan. ⟨hal-05627751⟩ (lien externe)