Abstract
This paper presents an interdisciplinary project using speculative design to explore the intersections of sustainability and technology in the UK Wool industry. Through a process of value mapping, worldbuilding, design fiction, and card development, the project involved stakeholders across the wool supply chain who contributed their perspectives and priorities. This process revealed how value is created in the wool industry, and how relationships and systems are mediated by hidden, often contrasting values. Findings highlight the importance of these values in shaping sustainable and equitable futures for the sector. We present a conceptual framework of valuation, revaluation and evaluation as a lens to understand this iterative process. The research challenges traditional top-down understandings of value and suggests Digital Good can be supported by a contextual values-driven chain. Finally, we present a key output: a card-based tool designed to support values-driven ethical evaluation and consideration of Digital Good in a futures-led approach.
Keywords
speculative design, sustainability, ethics, digital good
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1983
Citation
Jacobs, N., Birch, E., Craigon, P., Drury, K., Gutierrez Mendoza, A., Manning, L., and Perez, D. (2026) Speculative Woolgathering: Using design approaches to explore values in the UK wool supply chain to enable digital good, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1983
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Speculative Woolgathering: Using design approaches to explore values in the UK wool supply chain to enable digital good
This paper presents an interdisciplinary project using speculative design to explore the intersections of sustainability and technology in the UK Wool industry. Through a process of value mapping, worldbuilding, design fiction, and card development, the project involved stakeholders across the wool supply chain who contributed their perspectives and priorities. This process revealed how value is created in the wool industry, and how relationships and systems are mediated by hidden, often contrasting values. Findings highlight the importance of these values in shaping sustainable and equitable futures for the sector. We present a conceptual framework of valuation, revaluation and evaluation as a lens to understand this iterative process. The research challenges traditional top-down understandings of value and suggests Digital Good can be supported by a contextual values-driven chain. Finally, we present a key output: a card-based tool designed to support values-driven ethical evaluation and consideration of Digital Good in a futures-led approach.