Ethical design, solidarity economy: a value chain
I was at the Regional Chamber of the Social and Solidarity Economy of Centre-Val de Loire for an informal, exploratory conversation. One question kept surfacing: what truly connects ethical design to the solidarity economy? Design is often described as a driver of economic growth. That’s true. But it is rarely described for what it also is: a driver of solidarity economics. Here’s why.
The code of ethics as a functional equivalent of solidarity values
A designer who upholds their code of ethics — such as the one published by Alliance France Design, or the international standards of BEDA, ICoD or WDO — commits to serving collective utility, adopting a systemic approach, and understanding their environmental responsibility.
A daily practice built on promoting contractual transparency, refusing competition through undervaluation and unpaid competitions, defending intellectual property rights, and choosing clients with discernment — this rests on exactly the same pillars as a solidarity economy.
An ethical designer does more than practise a craft. They contribute to a more equitable economy through the standards they set for themselves and embody in every professional relationship.
Fair remuneration as a precondition for social impact
An underpaid designer cannot practise ethically or sustainably. Economic pressure leads to compromise: accepting projects that conflict with one’s values, forfeiting exploitation rights, rushing work that deserved care.
A designer’s economic prosperity is not in tension with their social mission. It is its precondition. This is the paradox Copryce works to resolve: you cannot ask designers to change the world while expecting them to do so at a loss.
Fairly valuing design makes its impact possible. One cannot exist without the other.
An ethical value chain
The effect of ethical design does not stop with the designer. Every client — whether a company, local authority, or institution — that works with a designer while respecting intellectual property rights, with a fair contract and coherent fees, enters a logic of solidarity economics in practice. They validate a model where creation has a price, where expertise is recognised, where the professional relationship is built on trust rather than power.
But the chain goes further. By working with an ethical designer, the client develops an exigence they did not necessarily have before: they learn to ask the right questions, to identify the real stakes of a project, to measure the impact of their creative choices on their users and their environment. An ethical designer does not simply deliver an outcome — they raise the standard of their client.
This is not a label. It is a shared behaviour. And that behaviour, repeated across an entire sector, changes the nature of the economy it operates within.
Copryce does not capture the value it measures: it redistributes it. In the form of benchmarks, independent market data, and professional legitimacy accessible to all. The 675 pricing examples, the 10 disciplines covered, the 7 languages, the 17 years of field experience: these are informational common goods placed at the service of an atomised profession, often isolated when facing clients who are better equipped to negotiate.
But beyond Copryce, every advocate of ethical design — school, institution, professional association, platform, network — should see themselves as an advocate of solidarity economics, social value, and environmental care. To recommend an ethical designer is to recommend a model of economic relationship. It is to introduce into an ecosystem the conditions for shared prosperity.
In this sense, Copryce advocates for design that is properly valued. A designer who upholds their code of ethics is, in practice, a contributor to a more solidarity-based economy. And every client who meets them in this commitment is too.
François Caspar, founder of Copryce, co-founder of Alliance France Design and board member of the Bureau of European Design Associations.
