Based on the international consensus that mankind is facing an existential crisis of its own making, at the meta level of the United Nations seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been issued. At the meso and micro levels of organisations and people there is a similar agreement on design for sustainability (DfS) to care for people and the planet. The tools and methodologies which have been proposed in the design thinking (DT) and design management (DM) field have neither satisfactorily addressed the challenges of DfS in academia nor in business. For instance DT has been increasingly criticised since the 2010s and its death has been pronounced many times. This zombie concept from a design perspective has nonetheless remained indispensable for business leaders and entrepreneurs trained in non-design disciplines such as management or engineering. They have clung to DT for an easy-to-understand framework, practical tools and methodologies in order to climb the DM staircase towards innovative products, services and organisations. DM and DT approaches of DfS have strived to, but by and large have failed to, address the current ecological and social challenges. It has been increasingly documented since the beginning of the 21st century. Two emerging approaches of DfS are discussed. First we present the emerging framework of systems design as an application of systems thinking to DfS. Second we introduce three instances of the reappropriation of the Heideggerian concept of “thinging” as contributions to infrastructuring DfS. They have not yet coalesced and are represented by a limited but expanding set of recently published material. Based on weak signals and emerging trends, systems design and design thinging are more transformative, radical and speculative than mainstream DM and DT articles have been so far. The two authors acknowledge that the systemic and cultural scope of design management for sustainability (DMfS) goes beyond mere improvements of DM and DT and could cause paradigmatic shifts and turmoil. The authors have applied problematization to critically look at existing theories and literature streams and to formulate insights. This paper aims to be a milestone on the way towards DMfS and revolves around two main principles. First it considers two levels and their circular interconnection. It starts at the micro level of the embodied ways of thinking and doing of people. Then it proceeds to the meso level of organisations as strategic and dynamic infrastructuring of participatory design. It eventually closes the loop across the two levels with an interpretation of design as an intelligent orchestration at each level and between them. The goal of the complex DMfS process is thus set to generate resilient translational systems. Second it recognizes the in-discipline of design. Thus it calls for DMfS to open up beyond its two sub-component disciplines and to let interdisciplinary paradigms emerge from cross-pollination with human and non-human sciences