http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/design-circular-economy-disruptive-technology
This is an article that was first published by
Chris Sherwin
theguardian.com,
Design for circular economy must
consider disruptive technologies
While nuts and bolts are
important, circular designs may not be created by engineers and designers, but
by technologists, digital entrepreneurs and innovators
There are risks in
getting designers to focus on the nuts and bolts of current products, rather
than on disruptive technologies that can supersede them. Photograph: Alan
Kaplanas/Corbis
A
decade or so ago, I worked on green and sustainable product design. I spent
much of that time dismantling products like video cassette recorders (VCR's) to
reduce materials, improve their energy use, eliminate hazardous substance use
and make them easier to disassemble.
A
few years down the line and our focus had shifted to dismantling DVD players
and recorders which had superseded VCR's. We used essentially the same
processes to tackle similar design challenges like energy and material use,
product disassembly and toxicity.
Fast-forward
10 years and what has happened is the dematerialisation of entertainment
content through new digital and information technologies and business models
like Netflix, LoveFilm and on-demand TV.
Beyond teardown
A lot of design for the circular economy is
based on disassembly projects, generically termed as teardowns. You can learn a
lot from taking an in-depth look at the mechanics and technicalities of how a
product is put together. It can unquestionably help make portfolios more
circular, easier to disassemble and recycle, more resource efficient and
minimise its hazardous substances and environmental footprint – all valuable
stuff.
However,
do these tools and methods adequately prepare us for an ecologically and
economically sustainable future? There are risks in getting designers to focus,
quite literally, on the nuts and bolts of current products, rather than on the
disruptive technologies that can supersede them. It may distract us from
systemic product-system redesign, and circular economy designers need to track
the seismic technological shifts that disrupt what we do today.
Keeping on top of what customers really want
In
some ways, dismantling video cassette recorders and DVD players all those years
ago is an early exemplar of the circular economy principle of 'starting with
the end in mind' - feeding learning from end of life product disassembly into
early-stage product design. But it's important to have the right end in mind.
Ultimately, it was the 'result', function, utility, service or benefit that
consumers were looking for to enjoy movie and TV content on-demand.
This is now satisfied in completely new ways, increasingly
through digital technology or new services that render old solutions obsolete.
The design question then becomes what is the best and greenest way to deliver
against these needs. It will be important to ensure new technologies or
solutions have sustainability maximised and built-in. Studies have suggested
the switch from physical (CD's) to digital entertainment content (MP3's) can reduce
environmental impacts by 40-80% (PDF). Downloading movies
however can have a higher carbon footprint than posting DVD's, based on the
efficiencies of servers and IT systems, so there is still a job to ensure
dematerialised products and new solutions actually deliver waste savings and
circularity across the entire system from the outset.
Circular
designers need to develop functionality and service-based thinking, as well as
knowing about products, technology and material science, and we should never
lose sight that in the end, almost all products are designed for people and
their needs.
A toolkit for circular design
Our
toolkit for circular design will certainly need good mechanical design skills;
plus will undoubtedly feature a better understanding of the fundamental
chemistry that makes up product components, as advocated by many circular
economy and cradle-to-cradle practitioners.
However,
many winning circular designs may not be created on the tables or labs of
engineers and designers dismantling existing kit; they may come from a new
entrant, or a fleet of-foot technologists, digital entrepreneurs and innovators
that gate-crash a category or industry; or else they may come from smart
marketers who spot and understand their customers needs and deliver
breakthrough solutions to satisfy them.
We
need new circular models of commerce that design-out waste, material and
resource problems from the get-go, in just the way digital and service
innovation has revolutionised home entertainments. As a result, the circular
economy will become the front-end design and innovation issue that it clearly
merits. In the rush to get to grips with the end-of-life issues from current
products, circular design must not miss new technology and new needs as
fundamental drivers for innovation.
