Corporate Design Foundation has launched a two-part research and development program to advance the understanding and application of sustainable design. This program, the Natural Design Consortium(NDC), will research and identify university faculty to develop and teach prototype multidisciplinary courses on sustainable product development and sustainable architecture. NDC will also identify existing sustainable design examples that can be used as teaching materials or can be developed into case studies for these courses.

Corporations and organizations that have recently completed sustainable design projects are invited to act as partners in the development of the NDC. The Foundation is actively seeking sustainable design success stories that can be developed into case study examples. Program partners will be asked to assist in documenting these materials and to participate in occasional university workshops with faculty and graduate students in the early development of these multidisciplinary courses. Corporate partners will be asked to provide limited funding for the development of the NDC and/or to sponsor a university course.

The Foundation is also seeking faculty and schools interested in collaborating on the development of multidisciplinary courses on sustainable product development or sustainable architecture. These groundbreaking courses will bring together a minimum of three distinct disciplines - including business, design (i.e.architecture, interior design or industrial design) and one other discipline representing expertise in sustainability, which could be engineering, ecology, biology or another discipline.