Resource efficiency is being designed into products and systems across the world, Katie Coyne investigates the innovative designs that are creating a more sustainable society.
Companies and products make lots of claims about sustainability, circularity, and resource efficiency. We can make small changes to improve sustainability but what we need to do ultimately is redesign whole systems.
It’s a mammoth undertaking but here are some ways that resource efficiency is being designed into products and systems.
“It’s always better to put effort into being more sustainable, that’s not a bad thing, but is it a sufficient thing?” asks transition engineer Prof Susan Krumdieck at Heriot Watt University. “That’s where being a bit more sustainable, when you are talking about an unsustainable thing, is just buying a little time.”
Flooring is one surprising area that has been undergoing a quiet revolution. The professor and her team have been looking at how Danish flooring company Tarkett changed its entire business model.
What Tarkett did was particularly interesting to Krumdieck because their process of change seemed very similar to transition engineering.
Read the entire article here: https://www.circularonline.co.uk/features/innovative-designs-for-resource-efficiency/
