Circular Design Principles

YouTube

What is it?

Circular Design Principles are sound product design, development, and management guidelines that give an organisational orientation to product decisions.

Which problem does it solve?

Circular Design Principles address three problems:

  1. Understanding: Typically, not everyone is familiar with the circular economy yet. Bringing relevant people together and aligning on design principles educates team members about the circular economy. The discussion process facilitates a shared understanding of (a) circular economy in general and (b) circular economy for the organisation.

  2. Orientation: Agreeing on Circular Design Principles guides people in their day-to-day work. Colleagues know what is essential and what is not and how circularity should be done in this company. Nevertheless, principles provide orientation only, as the specific implementation of a product needs flexibility to reconcile many requirements.

  3. Harmonisation: Having agreed upon Circular Design Principles makes it more likely that all products share specific circular characteristics. This reduces complexity for many company functions, from procurement to marketing.

Who should be involved?

Circular Design Principles can be crafted by a single person or a complete organisation. The more people are involved, the more complex the process becomes, but the lower the implementation friction, the higher the impact.

In general, the people and functions involved in product design and management, as well as those creating and maintaining the product, must be involved at some point. It could be an iterative process of various versions and feedback loops, starting from a small group and ending with members of all functions.

Be aware of the organisational reality: The scope and style of involvement will likely determine compliance with the Guidelines later on.

Involving affected colleagues is as essential as the Circular Design Principles themselves.

How does it work?

  1. Define the process: Who should be involved, what should be the scope, which stages should be followed, how is it linked to strategy or the product roadmap, how fast or slow do you want to go, who takes which roles in the process?

  2. Look outside for inspiration: What is the state of circularity in your industry? What are competitors doing? What are pioneers doing?

  3. Assess your status quo: Where do your products stand about circularity? What is done at the materials and procurement level? How does your waste management look? What is your strategic ambition?

  4. Select your action areas: Decide which gaps you want to close.

  5. Formulate principles and KPIs: Turn the gaps into guiding principles. Add metrics to be more specific and make progress tangible. Add examples to allow for better understanding.

  6. Educate and Communicate: Bring the principles to the people applying them. Enable them.

  7. Take Action and Reflect: Use the principles to create an action plan to apply the principles. Make room to learn, reflect and adapt it regularly.

What to be cautious about?

There are challenges at the beginning, during and after the process:

  1. Securing buy-in: Not only management but especially people affected by the principles should be involved in the process or support it.

  2. Making decisions: There are reasonable objections to any change. Therefore, clarity about what a specific principle implies and making a conscious decision to follow that direction might require boldness, leadership, and a willingness to make one future more likely than another.

  3. Learning and adapting: After the principles are released, team members might need training and constant reflection. Much will be learned throughout the application, and new (circular) innovations might occur. At some point, the Circular Design Principles will need to be updated.

Where to find out more about it?

Learn more about Principles.

Examples:

Who contributed to its creation & development?

The creative process is mostly a collective cultural process of creation, inspiration, copy & remix. Therefore, the following entries shall be understood as markers of significant milestones of this concept, not as an exclusive and exhaustive list of all people involved.

General Circular Design Principles have been formulated by multiple people already, e.g.

When it comes to company-specific principles there are companies that follow circular design principles for decades, like Bauhaus-inspired VITSOE https://www.vitsoe.com/de. Some also published their principles, see examples above.