  Targeting sustainability in our industrial society requires integrating
specific criteria in the design process of products and processes. A paradigm
shift is necessary in the economical, social and political systems to ensure
the natural ecosystems preservation on the planet while fulfilling society
needs. Various research methods have therefore emerged to change the way
products and services are designed, developed, used and discarded considering
territorial contexts. Design for Sustainability, Design for Sustainable
Transition, Socially Responsible Design, post-growth design, etc. provide
several methods integrating the sustainable principles in the design process.
However those approaches remain mainly experimental and are limited to the
industrial context. In parallel to those approaches a wide variety of
grassroots initiatives have emerged in territories. They propose alternative
ways to design systems and they integrate new constraints in a practical
manner. This research therefore aims to confront the diversity of Design to
Environment (DtE) approaches with 'grassroots' initiatives in order to
understand the possible evolution of the integration of sustainability into the
design process of products and services used in industry. This paper presents
the first literature review results of a started project in 2020. An original
research protocol is proposed in this paper, based on specific focus groups
with grassroots initiatives practitioners and eco-design experts from research
and industry. The presentation of four DtE frameworks are analysed in this
paper. This research finally discusses the opportunity of integrating the
grassroots enriched DtE frameworks by non-officialdesigners in life cycle
engineering. This bottom-up process may drive an expression of sustainability
in industry aligned with some emerging local socio-technical systems.
