Circular Design
What is it ?
Eco-Design or Circular Design is one of the 7 pillars of the Circular Economy. An eco-designed product is a product or a service with identical usage and performances than a standard product or service, but less impactful for the environment.*
*source : ADEME
Why doing it ?
- Reduce the environmental impact
- Answer new customer expectations
- Comply with new regulations (EU Product Environmental Footprint law, French GIEC and LCR laws, ...)
- Collaborators federation
Process
The Design stage determines 80% of a product's environmental impact.*
*source : European Commission : Ecodesign your Future
Following the ISO 14-040 European Guidelines, I can help you in the Circular Strategy and Design of your project :
1- Set up the sustainability goals with collaborative workshops around tools such as : SWOT, PESTEL Matrice and brainstorming.
2- Analyse of the current offer, product or service and its environmental impacts with simplified Life Cycle Analysis or Carbon Footprint analysis.
3- Establish a Circular design strategy with qualitative (Ecolabel checklists, EU Norms checklist, Circular Canvas, Value Chain Canvas, Core-Strategy-Impact,...) and quantitative (ESQCV, comparative Life Cycle Analysis,...) tools, and iterate it if necessary.
4- Evaluate and Compare the environmental impact of the offer before and after the implementation of the Circular design strategy
5- Make a decision based on the compromise between cost, feasability, client expectations, environmental impact, brand identity, product offer,...
4 Levels of Circular Design :
Not all the brands are at the same stage in their path towards sustainability, so depending on your goals, price positioning, and business model, I can help you in finding suitable design solutions to optimize the waste and environmental footprint of your project idea.
Key opportunities & existing solutions
- Use 100% biodegradable materials like FRAME jeans, for example with the component kit from OceanSafe
- A lot of brands are already using Polyester from recycled plastic, the most common being rPET from recycled PET bottles, available in all kind of shapes and textures : Waste2Wear
- Diversify : use alternative materials to organic cotton (25% of the market) and polyester (65% of the market) with other natural fibers such as Hemp or Linen, or bio-based synthetics.
- Collect unusual waste and recycle it into an alternative material to cotton like QWSTION with their development of Bananatex
- Collect plastic waste, transform it into new material and generate local awareness like GOT BAG
- Upcycle material from other industries like Freitag
- Design for easy repair like Patagonia , Nudie-jeans or self-repair like Dot Drops luggage
- Design for longevity with materials not harmful for the planet like LOOM
- Design with pattern-cut optimisation like Zero-Waste Design
- Use biodegradable packaging with Cadica
- Source, produce and repair locally like Vaude
Let me help you finding solutions and innovations towards a more sustainable textile and soft goods production! Don't hesitate to reach me out!
Sources to further dig into EcoDesign and Circularity :