How to design for a circular economy

Sustainability Victoria brought together a global panel of circular design experts for 'Deconstruct and Reconstruct: Design for a circular economy' at Melbourne Design Week. Keep reading for the key trends shaping circular product design.

The circular consumer

John Gertsakis, Director the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence says, as a whole, the system is not designed for people to be good product stewards. ‘There's tension between consumers wanting to do the right thing but then being bombarded by very aggressive sales and marketing programs to upgrade your product.’

He says we can’t talk about circularity if we’re in a growth mindset – before a circular economy can become the norm we need to address over consumption and over-extraction.

‘This generation is starting to acknowledge over production and over consumption. That we need to go beyond “less bad” and be restorative and regenerative in our design decisions and the materials we choose. Design has a key role to play because it can deal with that in a preventative way from the outset,’ he says.

The right to repair

‘More than half of the metals in a smartphone have functional recycling rates under 1%,’ says Elizabeth Chamberlain, Director of Sustainability at iFixit in the US and head of its Right to Repair advocacy team.

In the US, Google started working with iFixit when the ‘right to repair’ movement gained traction and began influencing legislation. The advocacy group is now Google Pixel’s official spare parts provider.

‘Now they have a whole advocacy team that has not only stopped fighting against right to repair, but that is actually fighting with us,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That only happened because people [consumers] took advantage of the opportunity to use the spare parts Google was selling with us.’

The right to repair movement has grown largely from the rise of repair cafes. ‘It's people getting together sharing repair knowledge and rejecting this idea that we need to upgrade,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Repair cafes offer an opportunity to reclaim power even if a manufacturer isn’t providing you with options, even if your thing is too old to be covered by your warranty.’

Having a modular product with components that can be easily removed normalises repair and waste avoidance. But this long-term thinking needs to be built in at the design phase. Elizabeth says the Fairphone and the Framework laptop are the best examples of this type of design in action.

‘They’re both designed with repair in mind from the start. The cases can be opened without any special tools, the parts are labelled so you know where the battery is, and you can see easily how to change it,’ she explains.

Fairphone sells a new camera module for its older phone, so you don't have to replace the entire phone if you want a better camera. ‘Instead of pushing you to upgrade they've got modular parts.’

A whole-system approach to regenerative design

Good design is only as circular as the system it’s a part of. A systemic approach that includes design, material policy, and consumers comes down to rethinking ‘waste’ altogether. Seeing it not just as a resource, but as part of a process of regenerating nature.

‘Waste is just a material without a home – a material that no one's put any consideration into,’ says Sarah D’Sylva, a Design Strategist and Co-Founder of Hyloh, a sustainable materials consultancy. She says thinking about materials that can actually benefit nature is the next big step towards circularity.

‘What regenerative and renewable materials can we start integrating into our supply chains that mimic nature? We need to eliminate waste through strategic design, but then also through using materials that can naturally go back into the earth and regenerate our biosphere,’ she says.

‘It makes sense to use the least amount of material for the longest time possible,’ says Sarah. ‘To consider the materials’ origins in terms of certification and procurement as much as you consider its possibilities for end of life. There's not one point of the system where we can intervene and have a result.’

John says that rethinking a product and the system it becomes a part of starts in the boardroom. ‘It's the directors and key decision makers who determine design briefs,’ he says.

‘In practical terms, if it's not in the project design brief it's really hard for designers, engineers and product developers to be empowered and do the right things … and that's why we're in the situation we are today.’

Find out more

Sustainability Victoria is fast tracking businesses to eliminate waste and building an evidence base for future investment in Victoria’s circular economy.

The Circular Economy Business Innovation Centre (CEBIC) is a one-stop-shop for events, funding, and research on circular economy. To date, SV has delivered support or training to almost 5,000 individuals and organisations.