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!
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.
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.
Learn more about our tools and approaches
(Learning Factory, Audit, Sprint)
and our experiences
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!
"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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
" ... 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.
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”.
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.
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.