2 projects
3 Mio budget
6 countries
8 partners
2016 - 2021
 

About EcoDesign Circle (4.0)

The challenge
Our approach
Who we are
  • The challenge
  • Our approach
  • Who we are
  • The challenge

    Our available resources are becoming scarce. We transgressed critical environmental parameters. Resulting social tensions and inequalities are growing. The conventional, linear way of production leads to the disposal and thereby eventually to the “devaluation” of products, their components and materials. A circular approach means for us to narrow, to slow and to close loops, that is, to reduce consumption of resources, to use them longer and again and again. This needs to be considered from the very beginning – by design!

    Read more about ecodesign

  • Our approach

    EcoDesign Circle (4.0) helped to put the spotlight on the design of products and services. Because the majority of the environmental impact of a product is determined in the design phase, this is a really effective leverage point. As one of our project partners said: “Ecodesign is good design that benefits people and the environment alike.” Therefore, our project developed and offered methods, formats and a platform to create circular business solutions starting from the design phase.

    Read more about our project

  • Who we are

    We are an international team of design centres, public authorities and design practitioners from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Poland, Russia and Sweden. We have been working together (from 2016 to 2019 as EcoDesign Circle and from 2019 until 2021 as EcoDesign Circle 4.0) to strengthen the awareness and practical application of the design approach to circular economy across the Baltic Sea region.

    Read more about our partnership
  • The challenge
  • Our approach
  • Who we are

 

What we offer

Get familiar with circular economy principles and circular design

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Define the stage of circular economy and design in a company

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Develop circular business operations and concepts for a company

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Find all our tools, templates and workshop approaches in our TOOLKIT

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Become inspired by our good cases from business, society, cooperation and policy!

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Knowledge platform to support your leap to circularity.

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Open space for circular design professionals and environmental experts to discuss their work and experience

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Train the Trainers

Learn more about our tools and approaches (Learning Factory, Audit, Sprint) and our experiences
  • Get familiar with circular economy principles and circular design

    Read more

  • Define the stage of circular economy and design in a company

    Read more

  • Develop circular business operations and concepts for a company

    Read more

  • Find all our tools, templates and workshop approaches in our TOOLKIT

    Read more

  • Become inspired by our good cases from business, society, cooperation and policy!

    Read more

  • Knowledge platform to support your leap to circularity.

    Read more

  • Open space for circular design professionals and environmental experts to discuss their work and experience

    Read more

  • Train the Trainers

    Learn more about our tools and approaches (Learning Factory, Audit, Sprint) and our experiences

    Methods & Approaches
    Inspiration & Information
    Exchange & Connect
    • Methods & Approaches
    • Inspiration & Information
    • Exchange & Connect
    • Methods & Approaches

      Our methods and formats are designed to help create circular solutions - both for products and services! The EcoDesign Learning Factory playfully demonstrates the potential of circular design. EcoDesign Audit and Sprint are „twins” that reveal both a company’s current status and its potential in terms of circularity and design, leading to the development of (more) circular products and services. For both the Learning Factory and the “Audit-Sprint” tool, working in interdisciplinary teams (design, business, sustainability) is essential.
      Find all tools and approaches in our Circular Design Toolkit.

    • Inspiration & Information

      Services and service design play an important role, enabling circularity and the uptake of sustainable products and practices. We need pioneers and a rising number of change agents to improve the chances of overcoming path dependencies. Therefore, we further developed the Sustainability Guide where companies, designers and higher education institutions will find inspiration and tools to work sustainably. We have gathered inspirational service, policy and cooperation cases for you: How have others managed to make the existing linear (business) model obsolete and become circular? Why are they still successful in the market? What have they achieved? And what are the accompanying political frameworks and cooperation models on local, national or even international level that have supported this?
      And we summarised our experiences in Policy Recommendations.

    • Exchange & Connect

      The importance of the circular economy and circular design in society has grown significantly in recent years. Our Train the Trainers workshops are geared towards experts and designers to support their focus on sustainability and increase their competence in applying our circular design approaches in companies. The Circular Design HOW TO? sessions are a response to this need – an open space online exchange format that we will continue. Feel free to subscribe!

    • Methods & Approaches
    • Inspiration & Information
    • Exchange & Connect

     

    "Ecodesign" News

    • Why not yet? - Circular perspectives by FixFirst

       Sebastian Daus, FixFirst

      "Our vision is a world where repairing products first and using them longer is the norm." says Sebastian Daus, CEO of of the Berlin-based impact and tech startup FixFirst. The team developed and introduced a software platform that digitises and simplifies circular services and processes - starting with repair and maintenance in the electronics sector.

      Read more

    • Test potential sustainability of your enterprise!

       IMG 9715

      A new website introducing the field of ecodesign/ circular design has been completed. It enables to test potential sustainability of your enterprise. Host of the website is the Estonian Design Centre.

      Read more

    • Let's keep on making the world more circular - Our results & offers for you

       IMG 9715

      Our project is finished now and we are happy to share with you the results & offers we created in the last years. Since 2016, we have been working to strengthen awareness and practical application of the “design approach” to circular economy across the Baltic Sea region. Let’s keep on working to make this world more circular – together & by design, of course!

      Read more

    • Friendship and cooperation – the Russian approach to promoting circular economies

       DFF Talk

      Medina Art is a relatively small marketing and business consulting company in St. Petersburg and has been an active partner of "EcoDesign Circle 4.0" since 2019. What began with the first Circular Design workshops in St. Petersburg has meanwhile triggered a "circular wave" that is sweeping across companies, organisations and politicians in Russia from the Baltic Sea to Kamchatka.

      Read more

    • From (ecodesign) idea to market

       

      How to bring more eco-designed solutions to the market? How can SMEs evaluate the economic feasibility of circular solutions? The Berlin Institute for Innovation Research draws from over 10 years of experience regarding target groups, viable product ideas and sustainable business models. The newly developed guidelines „From (ecodesign) idea to market“ are meant to help SMEs see the advantages of sustainability, so that they are able to remain or become successful both in terms of their economic and innovative power.

      Read more

    • Speed up the transition with circular design

       DFF Talk

      We've all been there: changing habits is not always as easy as one might think. That's why it is helpful to have someone to support and motivate you. In an online event, professionals from the fields of design, digital services and city marketing presented inspiring solutions and lessons learnt to support and establish circular offers and consumption patterns.

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    • How to bake a circular ecodesign cake

       DFF Talk

      How do you develop circular services that benefit your customers, the environment and your business alike? How do you improve the customer experience in the circular economy? And how do you enable customer participation in extended use, maintenance and re-use of products?
      These questions were addressed in a training hosted by the International Design Center Berlin.

      Read more

    • Ten years of German Ecodesign Award – Call for applications 2021

      Post Twitter EN

      For ten years now, the German Ecodesign Award has shown how environmental and climate protection, innovation and excellent design can be combined. In its anniversary year, the jury of the highest state award for ecological design is once again on the lookout for future-oriented concepts, services and products. Companies of all sizes and from all sectors, students and pioneers in the national and international arena are invited to apply by 12 April 2021.

      Read more

    • EcoDesign Learning Factory – new service ideas for circular economy

      DFF Talk

      " ... At the end of September, I took part in the Learning Factory training pilot of the EcoDesign Circle 4.0 project exploring service development according to the principles of circular economy ..." Read more about the experiences of a participant from  Design Forum Finland in this pilot.

      Read more

    • Regiostars – Regions cooperating for circular solutions

      DFF Talk

      How to turn "waste" into market-ready products through design and engineering? How to encourage consumers to change their habits in favour of their health and a reduced footprint? How to strengthen design centres as actors to push the transition to a circular economy? The European Commission hands out its annual REGIOSTARS Awards to inspiring EU-funded projects. Discover this year’s finalist projects in the category “Circular Economy for a Green Europe”.

      Read more

    • Making the world go round - 4th edition of Design Forum Talk about Circular Economy

      DFF Talk

      For the fourth time, Design Forum Finland opened its (virtual) gates and welcomed us to their Talk series about circular economy. Six different guests showed that circular design is possible and can move us towards a sustainable future.

      Read more

    • EcoDesign Learning Factory goes online - First pilot on Circular Service Design

      IDZ / Kühnapfel Fotografie - Circular Design Forum, Berlin 2018

      Business is doing great, but the planet is moaning. This has to stop. But how? Join the new format of the EcoDesign Learning Factory: A pilot on Circular Service Design! This brand new format combines different methods from various fields to boost circular economy – and we need you and your brain to make it better.

      Read more