MUSA - Multilayered Urban Sustainability Action is an Ecosystem of Innovation funded by MUR as part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. In addition to the Politecnico di Milano, the project involves Università di Milano-Bicocca, Università Bocconi, and Università Statale di Milano, as well as numerous public and private partners. The project promotes the development of innovative projects as a response to the challenges that the metropolitan reality of Milan faces in the transition towards the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic and social.

The Design Department research group is involved within Spoke 5 - Sustainable Fashion, Luxury & Design, a research track focusing on developing and promoting new materials, processes, and new, more sustainable and circular development models for the creative and cultural sectors of fashion, luxury and design. In particular, the Design Department research group focuses on creating sustainable design-driven retail and service models.

The Sustainable Design-Driven Retail and Service Model aims to support new distribution and retail models in highly creative and cultural sectors (fashion, design and lifestyle), oriented towards sustainability and capable of fostering processes of regeneration and valorization of urban cultural, creative and productive capital. The project intends to act on different levels of intervention: product-lifecycle, extending and controlling the life cycle of products, promoting behavioural change; cultural, enhancing the cultural heritage and know-how linked to the design and production phases, enhancing the productive districts; urban, creating virtuous connections, networking the actors of the territory (Milan and Lombardy).

Recognizing retail as a potential activator of sustainable and circular processes in the territory, the project explores the potential of servitization as a lever to improve resource efficiency and create positive environmental effects for society. Product-service systems (PSS) are considered effective tools for implementing circular economy processes through improved resource utilization, positively influencing extended corporate responsibility, generating new revenue streams, gaining new competitive advantages, and increasing consumer awareness.
Within this scenario, the project aims to:

• Accompany companies to pilot innovative, sustainable, circular retail and services formats and concepts.
• Experiment with innovative distribution models for products and services with high cultural content (design, fashion, lifestyle).
• Define supporting protocols and effective tools to trigger transferable and scalable design processes.
• Activate training and human capital enhancement processes.
• Set up meetings, conferences, and workshops with companies, retailers, start-ups, professionals, designers, trade associations, citizens and municipalities to share and co-design sustainable solutions.