Overview

Game of Zones is an interactive teaching tool developed for the GIZ and the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) to convey the principles of sustainable industrial district planning in a participatory and accessible format. Commissioned as part of the Blue Collar Green III programme, the tool was designed to bridge the knowledge gap between sustainability theory and practice for a diverse range of stakeholders — from policy makers and investors to urban planners, environmental consultants and blue-collar workers across India.

Approach

The tool translates the DGNB Industrial Districts certification system into a set of 270+ circular playing cards, colour-coded across six sustainability dimensions: Environmental, Economic, Socio-Cultural, Technical, Process and Innovation Quality. Three formats were developed — an Icebreaker dice game, the Game of Zones group planning game, and the Industrial Poker card game — each calibrated across three levels of expertise. The design emphasises synergies between sustainability measures, low-tech applicability in the Indian context, and learning through doing. Physical and digital versions of the toolkit were produced, alongside a training curriculum and train-the-trainer handbook.

Outcomes

Game of Zones established a scalable, replicable format for sustainability capacity building in the industrial sector, adaptable to diverse audiences and contexts. The toolkit was piloted in training sessions across India and received coverage through the DGNB blog. Its concept of mediating complex engineering knowledge through card-based play has since been recognised as transferable to other development and planning contexts. The game supports India's national industrial training agenda and contributes to the broader goal of embedding sustainability thinking at all levels of industrial park management.

Client

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, New Delhi, India

Partner

BuroHappold Engineering (project delivered during tenure)

DGNB – German Sustainable Building Council

Timeline

2013 – 2015