Best Practice Publication Circular Design

II. The Best Practice Publication
We are very happy to present the Best Practice Publication of the project Circular
Design - Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability. This publication is the result
of an intense work detecting, interviewing, analysing and writing case studies on some
of Europe’s most interesting projects in design for the circular economy.
These eleven case studies represent the diversity of sustainable designed products
and services in Europe. They are from really different sectors like technology, urban
furniture, waste management, clothing and accessories, food packaging or furniture
to show how sustainable design strategies can be applied in every sector. The result is
a collation of well implemented business models based in excellent products, showing
the creative process and the strategies that made them innovative and profitable.
We have focused the attention in the four countries that are participating in the
project, that are Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, but most of them have
had international impact and can be bought in many different countries.
The criteria to choose them has been:
• Process design defined. As the goal of this publication is to help designers,
entrepreneurs and students to learn about the circular design methodology of
successful products, it was mandatory for them to have a clear design process
developed and/or managed by professionals.
• Product, service, business model, system. They needed to have one of these
shapes to be useful examples for the design or business community.
• Circular economy point of view. It’s obvious that if we are studying innovative
projects that have a sustainability approach they had to be created under a prism
of circular economy.
• Real (or relevant part) implementation tested. We wanted to demonstrate the
viability of these strategies in projects that are already being produced, tested,
used, etc. to obtain learning that can be applied in a pragmatic way.
• Sustainable and/or social strategies adopted. The circular economy approach
will ensure that the projects have a positive impact in the environment and the
society.
• Easy to evaluate through indicators. It’s positive that the projects have measured
in a trustworthy way which ones are these impacts.
We paid attention in the cocreation methodologies that were used to generate
the product or service, to make the publication as useful as possible for students,
teachers and the whole design and entrepreneurship community in the design and
development of similar proposals.
The transdisciplinarity behind the projects has been also a main part of this collation.
Sustainable design projects are by definition the result of the combination of design,
engineering, environmental science, business, etc. so one of the most important
aspects of the publication is to understand the knowledge exchange between
disciplines.
To choose the different projects that are part of the selection we have done a wide
research in different circular economy sources, design blogs and sustainable design
prizes.
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