The Use2Use Design Toolkit-Tools for User-Centred Circular Design

Recent research highlights that the important role users play in the transition to a circular economy is often overlooked. While the current narrative emphasises how to design products fit for circular (re-)production flows, or how to design circular business models, it often fails to address how such solutions can be designed to be attractive to people. As long as products and services are designed in a way that makes people prefer linear options over circular ones, the transition will not gain momentum. To further the understanding of how a user perspective can be valuable for circular design, this paper introduces the Use2Use Design Toolkit and presents initial experiences from using its five tools in design work. The tools were developed between 2016 and 2019 and subsequently applied in 30 workshops with professionals and students. Insights from the workshops suggest that the participants generally found the tools fun, instructive and inspirational. The tools enabled them to discuss circular processes from a user\u27s point of view and to identify challenges and design opportunities. The toolkit was considered especially relevant and meaningful by product and service designers who needed support to explore circular solutions from a user perspective

Indicator development as a site of collective imagination? The case of European Commission policies on the circular economy

In recent years the concept of the circular economy gained prominence in EU policy-making. The circular economy promotes a future in which linear ‘make-use-dispose’ cultures are replaced by more circular models. In this paper, we use the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to ask how an imaginary of circularity has been assembled and stabilized, which imaginative resources were drawn on, and how goals, priorities, benefits and risks haven been merged with discourses of innovation, sustainability and growth. Drawing on policy documents and interviews with policy officers of the European Commission, we argue that the monitoring framework and indicator development function as a site collective imagination in which desirable ‘circular’ futures are co-produced. These futures are imagined to provide novel opportunities for the private sector and to generate jobs and economic growth while at the same time improving the natural environment as measured by selected environmental indicators.publishedVersio

Altruism and culture as drivers for circular economy engagement

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Marketing IntelligenceCircular Economy (CE) is posited as a solution to the rise of environmental impact with economic prosperity by introducing alternative systems of production, consumption and disposal. The recent attention that this holistic framework has been gaining on government implementation policies and businesses structures is due to a significant amount of successful projects already implemented around the world and data driven information supporting CE practices as effective and attainable on a global scale. Consumer engagement is considered one of the key challenges that Circular Economy has been facing to achieve a higher level of implementation. To understand consumer’s motivations, to adopt distinct forms of consumption not only on the purchase phase but also on using and discarding products is the central objective of this research. The present work aims to consider previous studies of culture, altruism and need for social status as dimensions that were proved to predict, motivate and supports consumer’s action towards sustainability; understanding cultural orientation effects on altruism (pure and competitive) and need for social status, proposing a match between pure altruism and circular economy engagement. The findings indicate that people with horizontal collectivism cultural orientation will be motivated by pure altruism and individuals with vertical individualism cultural orientation will be motivated by competitive altruism. Furthermore, that pure altruism motivation will drive circular economy engagement. By combining identity goals and consumer’s motivation for engaging in a circular economy we contribute with knowledge for the elaboration of strategies and public policies for enhancing and stimulating circular economy acceptance on a consumer’s perspective

Everyday futures:A new interdisciplinary area of research

An interdisciplinary group of researchers have formed the Everyday Futures Network in July 2016. An inaugural workshop was held at Lancaster University's Institute for Social Futures. Tim Chatterton and Georgia Newmarch's article examines the diversity of ways of living that coexists at any moment in time between different cultures and social groups. The authors argue that some members of the society, including technology designers and researchers, have more power than others to decide the types of futures that get promoted and prioritized. Daniel Welch, Margit Keller, and Guiliana Mandich point out that all too often future visions such as the circular economy gloss over the changed everyday lives essential to their realization. Maureen Meadows and Matthijs Kouw offer a method for developing multiple visions of a better everyday future, emphasizing plurality and potentially conflicting ideas of the good life

The Nexus Times

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Kuluttajat kiertotaloudessa : Kohti kiertotaloutta ja korjaamista edistävää yhteiskuntaa

Kansallinen kiertotalousohjelma pyrkii kohti yhteiskuntaa, jossa kiertotaloudesta tulee talouden uusi perusta vuoteen 2035 mennessä. Tämän raportin tavoitteena on tarkastella kiertotaloutta kuluttajanäkökulmasta. Raportissa esitellään kuluttajien ja kulutustutkijoiden näkemyksiä kiertotaloudesta sekä pohditaan erityisesti korjaamiseen liittyviä kysymyksiä. Tarkastelussa on korjaaminen liiketoimintana, taitoina ja historiallisena kehityksenä. Kirjoittajat analysoivat tuotteiden elinkaaren pidentämistä, korjaustoiminnan elvyttämistä ja sitä, kuinka koulutusta voitaisiin kehittää, jotta korjauspalvelut voisivat paremmin kehittyä Suomessa. Raportin keskeisiin politiikkasuosituksiin kuuluu, että kuluttajien kiertotalouspalveluiden TKI-työhön ja osaamiseen tulisi panostaa ainakin ammatillisessa koulutuksessa, korkeakouluissa ja tutkimuslaitoksissa. Kiertotalouspalvelujen kehittämiseksi voitaisiin käynnistää räätälöityjä kehittämis- ja rahoitusohjelmia sekä osoittaa niille sopivia digitaalisia alustoja ja tiloja. Jotta palveluilla olisi myös kysyntää, korjauspalveluiden elvyttämiseksi voitaisiin kokeilla esimerkiksi Wienin mallin mukaisia korjausseteleitä, kohdennettua arvonlisäveron alennusta tai kotitalousvähennyksen laajennusta. Samalla kuluttajille voitaisiin tarjota tietoa ja kokemuksia kiertotalouden mukaisista palveluista vaikkapa paikallisten korjausfestareiden muodossa

Circularity on the periphery: exploring the circular economy in rural and peripheral geographies

The prevailing wisdom about the Circular Economy (CE) is that it is a largely technical and industrial endeavour, one that is centred in major urban cores. Recent scholarship has highlighted the need for more critical social sciences research on the topic to illuminate the human and social dimensions of CE. Heeding the call for more social sciences voices in the field of CE research, my thesis offers a qualitative perspective on small-scale stories of circular innovations in the Netherlands and Scotland. In particular, I focus on peripheral spaces in these countries; in the case of Scotland, this entailed an exploration of CE in and around the postindustrial city of Dundee and in the Netherlands, the research was more rural-focused. Drawing on thematic concepts like ethical consumerism, daily practice and institutional/political/social linkages, as well as scholarship focusing on peripherality and the scalar dimensions of sustainability transitions, this work offers an in-depth examination of the complex dynamics that underscore particular CE initiatives. More specifically, my research reveals that CE projects are diverse and site-specific in nature, therefore indicating that a blanket approach to CE is likely to be very ineffective. My findings emphasize the need to examine small-scale circular narratives to better understand what factors facilitate or inhibit their implementation. The smallness of these projects is to their advantage as smaller, peripheral actors are more likely to leverage creativity and innovative thinking, as they do not have to implement their projects across a wide geographical area. Their size also allows researchers to observe more clearly the various dynamics at play. The purpose of such studies is not meant to be didactic, but rather their intention should be to stimulate broader thinking about what the CE can mean across a multiplicity of contexts