This article aims to frame the role of Systemic Design (SD) as an alternative design model for the future of design for sustainability, by defining and assessing a structured process to execute Holistic Diagnosis (HD), an innovative context framework. Taking as its background a deep understanding of the design for sustainability and systems thinking concepts that frame SD as a field where HD is rooted, multiple case-study analyses were performed. HD demonstrates its ability to overcome the design boundaries in different fields such as industrial production, local communities, and policy-making, thereby providing a more in-depth understanding of complex environments with an iterative process: assess, research, collect, visualize, and interpret. This framework is a relevant tool for designers to address problem framing in complex scenarios to obtain future sustainable solutions with an innovative and transdisciplinary approach, thereby promoting a horizontal dialogue among all involved components.

The vast transformation the circular economy that will occur in the upcoming years inevitably will change the EU panorama, designing new scenarios from an economical-social-environmental perspective. To best build a circular economy, it is necessary innovative policy-planning with a holistic and systemic perspective that fosters a cohesive and smooth transition to circular business models. This paper explores the impacts of circular economy policy design processes driven by a systemic design and how this expertise could ease innovative and effective paths for policy-planning on a circular transition in EU regions. This examination of systemic design features recent approaches to design as a discipline addressing complex problems, and the literature review on systems and design thinking for sustainable development, and policy design, focusing on existing barriers to circular economy. The discussion is narrowed to the specific case study in which the systemic design methodology is applied to provide a path for five European regions towards the CE: the Interreg Europe RETRACE (A Systemic Approach for Regions Transitioning towards a Circular Economy) project. Including an in-depth examination of how systemic design can address current barriers for a circular transition within an effect in the short, medium, and long-term policy horizon in the transition of the European regions towards the circular economy.

Nowadays cities are pushed to transform drastically and faster their urban-fabric to cope with the demands of the market, this acceleration has resulted in the rise of more post-industrial cities. On that complex scenario, how can a territorial thinking in post-industrial areas foster Circular Economy (CE) frameworks to address the current environmental and economic challenges of society? Through this paper is intended to examine the case study of the post-industrial area of Mirafiori sud in Turin, Italy, to expose how the Systemic Design approach allows a wider examination of post-industrial areas to promote CE strategies that can generate a sustainable consumption of local resources and services fostering urban transitions. Endorsing the Systemic Design approach as an expertise that provides a holistic overview, within a transdisciplinary method brings together governments, industry, and citizenship.

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