INDUSTRY:
DESIGN STRATEGY
TIMELINE:
MAY - JULY 2026
EXPERIENCE:
DESIGN RESEARCH
SOFTWARE:
A strategic research project examining how India’s traditional design intelligence can be redirected toward sustainable product design.
Field Research
Ethnographic Research
Stakeholder Interviews
Scenario Planning
Internship Project | Maruti Suzuki | SU26
India is simultaneously the world’s third largest solar producer and home to 54 of the world’s 100 most polluted cities. Sustainability strategy in the country often starts from imported Western frameworks, even though India holds a long record of field-tested ecological design. This 19th-century palki rath, for example, is woven from cane, needs no energy to produce, is repairable by anyone who can weave, and biodegrades at end of life. In 2026, few designed products meet all four criteria.
This leads to a question: how can design translate what already works in India, rather than import what works elsewhere?
Growth vs. Ecological limit
India is simultaneously the world's third largest solar producer and home to 54 of the world's 100 most polluted cities. Water demand will be twice available supply by 2030.
AIR POLLUTION IN DELHI, VIA TIMES OF INDIA
Aesthetic Borrowing vs. Functional Translation
A jaali screen that looks traditional but doesn't drive cooling. A courtyard that references heritage but has been sealed and air-conditioned because the developer didn't trust passive systems to perform.
PRESTIGE UNIVERSITY BUILDING, VIA ARCHIPANIC
Visible vs. Structural Sustainability
The physical tag at the point of purchase says the fabric composition and "we make it with care." The story is told where it drives purchase. The evidence is absent where it would inform decision.
GOOD EARTH TAG, VIA GOOD EARTH
Field visits across Delhi NCR to understand how sustainability is practiced and communicated
Craft and heritage sites: National Crafts Museum, Dilli Haat, TERI–India Habitat Centre
Green and informal-economy sites: Yamuna Biodiversity Park, Sunder Nursery, a local kabadiwalla depot
Retail and design studios: Good Earth, Nicobar, Neytt, The Kunj, Quicksand design studio, plus fast fashion comparisons at H&M and Zara
Online interviews with the founders of Sirohi and CoolAnt
Sirohi’s team described the product aesthetics as what buyers respond to most, with the sustainability story just being a "cherry on top"
CoolAnt’s founder described environmental performance as the first priority and aesthetics the last, a useful counterpoint
the pattern.
Notes were clustered across arenas and traced back to five forces shaping the next 21 years:
scenarios through 2047.
The Leapfrog
(Aanya, 24, Delhi)
India uses its constraint-led intelligence to skip the high-impact development phase, and subtraction
The Aspiration Trap
(Kabir, 26, Mumbai)
Consumer aspiration outpaces ecological constraint, and sustainability stays an aesthetic, premium signal
design principles.
India's aspiration to achieve developed country status by 2047 creates tension with sustainability.
Ratan Tata's engineering team was asked from the design phase itself to be as frugal, as "jugaadu" as they could.
Engineer the outcome, not the intention
The question of who bears the cost of sustainability and who gets its benefits is inseparable from the ecological question.
Subtract before you add
Translate function, not aesthetics
Distinguish the circular from the theatrical
Design for the constraint context, not the abundance context
Spending a summer looking for India's sustainability answer, I kept finding the same twist: the answer was never missing, just unapplied. The harder lesson was in the counter-cases, though. Watching a founder tell me, plainly, that the story sells and the system doesn't have to, taught me more about how sustainability actually moves through markets than any case study did.
India's design intelligence is to see what already exists, redirect its capability, remove everything between that capability and the outcome you need.