The International Symposium on Sustainable Design (ISSD), organized in conjunction with the Brazilian Symposium on Sustainable Design (SBDS), is the most important scientific event in South America on the issue of Sustainable Design. This year the event will occur on the 5th and 6th November and it will be hosted by Anhembi Morumbi University, São Paulo, with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Associação de Ensino e Pesquisa de Nível Superior de Design do Brasil (AEND|Brasil) and Rede Brasil de Design Sustentável endorsement. The event brings together design professionals, academics, government and industry to discuss concepts, tools and methodologies on the design contribution towards a more sustainable society.

Discussing Sustainable Design in São Paulo makes total sense. It is a large cosmopolitan city, with one of the best gastronomic scenes around the world. Very importantly, it is the capital of the State of São Paulo, which covers just 3% of Brazil territory but has the biggest and most diversified economy in Brazil. Also, São Paulo is also the most populated State of Brazil (more than 40 million inhabitants) epitomizing all the sustainability challenges for the design profession.

The I ISSD occurred in Curitiba in 2007 (www.design.ufpr.br/issd) and it showed a thriving design research community eager for an event focused on exclusively on the issue of sustainability. Like that first event, on the II ISSD Anhembi Marumbi University is committed to raise the standards on event organization, both from the environmental as well as from the social point of view.

On this event the innovations include the promotion of dialogue of participants previously and after the event, with the use of digital paper presentation a month before the event starts. This will enable larger amount of time for discussions and networking, thus, contributing to speeding up knowledge exchange among the participants. The official language on the event will be English, thus you can expect have little problems to communicate and learn.