GreenTeam. A new educative approach to sustainable design

Sustainability, meaning its three pillars, social, economic and environmental, is by now a prerequisite in the design phase and one of the mandatory topics in educational programs, both for future designers and other professions. This happens even more if the project theme concerns mobility or waste management, fields in which daily behaviours impact on the system, the ones adopted by teenagers as well. Is it possible and correct to use an academic teaching methodology, based on participation and learner-teacher mutual exchange, that usually works with adult and motivated people, with a group of high school students? If the actors of the system already adopt sustainable behaviours for contingent reasons and lack of resources rather than the real will and awareness, what are the actions to be taken? The paper answers these questions through the analysis of a direct experience of the authors: GreenTeam.