Designing for the Circular Economy

This demands attention refers to both the front end (Design for Resource Value, DfRV) and the back end (Design for Resource Conservation, DfRC) of a product or service’s total life cycle. DfRV is the part of the design effort referring aiming at maximizing the environmental and economic value in the first life cycle of the product. DfRC is the part aiming at maximum conservation and value in the life cycles following discarding by the first user.

DfRV focuses therefore on minimizing the use of natural resources, to achieve a certain economic value. The core goal of DfRC is maximizing ‘waste prevention’ that is designing products with longer lifetimes in their first life cycle. Simultaneously, optimizing ‘reuse’ in subsequent life cycles (ranging from reuse a product in its totality (highest level) to reuse of components and parts (next level) to reuse of constituent materials (recycling, lowest level).

This sounds pretty complicated and at first sight many ‘conflicts of interest’ seem to arise between the various strategies which can be followed. However, design practice shows that there is much ‘parallelism’. In the end some compromises have been struck (the nature of these is strongly dependent on the product category considered) but the good news is that the opportunities to deal (significantly) better with resources dominate clearly.

Thus, CPD works with ratios rather than absolute numbers: how much raw material is needed to achieve a certain economic result (e.g., added value). Or conversely, what amount of resources can be conserved by sacrificing a given economic value? This relative approach allows the environmental objective inherently present CPD to be better integrated into business objectives than in traditional Eco Design.

The ‘energy’ variable is a bit trickier. Decisions regarding the generation and distribution of energy are largely made at a governmental level, and technology plays a major role in determining how households and businesses receive this energy. In other words, the influence of designers on energy consumption is largely secondary.

CPD began in partial form back in 1995. The focus then was largely on ‘designing for material recycling’. This attracted interest, and in 1999, the Dutch government introduced a law requiring manufacturers to take back and recycle discarded electronic products; the rest of Europe followed suit in 2004.

Interest in other forms of reuse began to emerge in 2010. These included items like product life extension, repairability, and the reuse and remanufacturing of subassemblies and components. Initial efforts to implement the idea of designing for resource conservation were fairly top-down and academic in nature. Many focused on ideal practice. But there has since been a notable shift, and a lot more is starting to happen from the bottom up, with companies first assessing their performance (or lack thereof) in terms of circularity, and then identifying what can be done to improve their performance. In practice, the best approach to designing for resource conservation depends largely on the reasons why consumers discard a particular product. The task facing a designer for a producer whose products are typically discarded because they offer limited repairability (improve weak points in the design, increase access to repair) is different from that faced by the designer for a principal whose customers are demanding more functionality (design for upgradability), or one seeking to address issues of wear and tear (design for remanufacturing or material recycling). Other non-technical but common reasons why people discard particular products must also be taken into consideration. These include things like change in marital status (one gets married or moves in with their partner, one gets divorce, one dies) or simply a desire for something new/impulse buying. Each product category possesses a distinct profile defined by the reasons for discarding. The one for furniture, for instance, is vastly different from that for smartphones. Consequently, the optimal DfRC strategy must be determined on a case-by-case basis, and today many designers/businesses still have to go through a learning curve crafting such strategies. There is only on way to do this: learning by doing!

Also designing for resource value (DfRV) at the front end is a new concept. To achieve optimum results in this field, much attention has to be paid to the relative appreciation of potential buyers of a particular product for its functionality profile. For instance, customers who base their buying decisions on product quality will have a different appreciation of the outcome of DfRV than those seeking the lowest possible price. Products can then be tailored to the needs of buyers on the basis of interest profiles of customer groups (so-called ‘target group products’)

DfRV may still be in its infancy, but the importance of using raw materials as frugal as possible is beyond any doubt.