> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://4revs.gitbook.io/handbook/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://4revs.gitbook.io/handbook/chapters/daring-design/global-insights.md).
# Global Insights
In this section we will delve into examples of daring design that concretely address the needs of sustainability, circularity, long-term thinking, and systemic thinking. Not all the examples will provide an adequate response to all our reference values (it is difficult to excel at all three!), but they are certainly virtuous case studies from which we can draw inspiration and learn how design can have a positive impact on the world. In fact, the main question we will try to answer through our examples is: How can we design everyday goods in a more responsible way?
First, we want to introduce the concept of "zombie" materials, energies, and technologies. What is it? It's a term coined by physicist José Halloy, who works at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Tomorrow's Energies at the University of Paris. With this term, he refers to most of the technologies invented during the industrial revolution that continue to inundate the planet, being produced in billions of units every year and still functioning. For example, Halloy speaks of smartphones and computers as objects that will be dead by the end of the century (“dead technologies walking”), calling them “zombies” because the scarcity of materials (understood as extinction or limited availability) will make it impossible for us to produce them in the way we do now. We think of them as living technologies or materials but they are in some way already dead, since we won’t be able to produce them in a short span of time. This also applies not only to many finished products but also to raw materials and the use of certain types of energy. In an interview featured in the book "Ecologies du smartphone" (Smartphone Ecologies), the physicist cites Canadian writer Margaret Atwood when she says, "It's not climate change, it's everything change": it's about completely rethinking how we live and design because everything is changing rapidly.
To better understand the concept and the differences between a zombie technology or material and a living one, look at this table:
|
| Resources | Durability | End of life |
| ------------------------------ | ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| Zombie technologies/ materials | Finite (depletion in the long term) | Minimum durability in working conditions | Maximum lifespan in waste form |
| Living technologies/ materials | Renewable (strong durability) | Maximum durability in working conditions | Minimum lifespan in waste form |
Source: translated and adapted by the author from the book “Héritage et fermeture”, Bonnet, Landivar, Monnin (2021).
If we want to avoid international conflicts over raw materials or the possibility that only a few privileged individuals can continue to enjoy abundant goods while most people suffer restrictions, we must take action.
The first case we address pertains to one of the principles of sustainable design: reparability. Electronic products, in particular, suffer from a complexity of composition, the desire of companies to maintain control over the finished product – more from the standpoint of intellectual property than materials, unfortunately – and the suspicion of what is known as planned and perceived obsolescence, the process whereby a product is designed and marketed with a reduced lifespan to reduce the time between sales. The consequences of the impossibility of repairing electronic products include overproduction, material waste, and pollution from waste disposal, not to mention the energy required to extract the materials that make them up, produce them, distribute them, advertise them, treat them, potentially recycle them, which statistically may not be renewable energy. Furthermore, it's a form of coercion for customers, who, due to the economic convenience of buying a new product rather than repairing a broken one, are forced to be complicit in the system in the absence of alternatives, even from a legal standpoint.
The solution that a lot of organizations around the world are promoting is the “right to repair”: this means that they ask for legislation to design repairable goods, that can be disassembled and where parts can be substituted, without incurring copyright violations. In Europe, a movement composed of existing organizations and NGOs dedicated to this goal was founded in 2019 and it’s called “[Right to Repair](https://repair.eu/).” Since then, the movement has succeeded in being heard by institutions and in contributing to shaping the legal framework in Europe for the repairability of goods. It's a win for everyone: the environment, ordinary people, institutions that provide a service to the community, and also for companies, which are encouraged to achieve better performance and take on sustainability issues, gaining a competitive advantage in the market.
This case is interesting because of its impact at the legislative level. If, in this instance, it involves a movement comprised of civilian groups, there’s no reason a similar type of action couldn’t be undertaken within companies. Companies can serve as a lever for innovation and development, positioning themselves as pioneers in a particular sector (in this case, transformative or circular design) to set market standards and potentially influence environmental policies within their country.
In fact, even before the "Right to Repair" movement organized itself, a Dutch company had thought of a solution to the problem of overproduction and non-repairability of electronic devices, particularly smartphones. With an average lifespan of smartphones being 3 years or less, this device contributes significantly to an ever-increasing amount of e-waste; moreover, in the manufacturing phase each device produces 200x its weight of waste before it even reaches the consumer! The rare minerals used in smartphones and other electronic devices (tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold) are often extracted in conflict zones like the Democratic Republic of Congo and contribute to the spread and prolongation of conflicts. This is why such minerals have earned the name “conflict minerals.” Wanting to raise awareness of the issues around conflict minerals, the founders of the social enterprise[ Fairphone](https://www.fairphone.com/en/) decided to change the electronics industry from the inside by creating an ideal example of a sustainable device, without the use of conflict minerals, which uses Fairtrade certified minerals that are extracted and sold ethically. The design choices continue:. To make the phones truly eco friendly, Fairphone uses a modular design and includes a check-up feature in the phones. So, if the earpiece is not working anymore or there is an improved camera available in a newer model, the user can order parts and repair or upgrade their device instead of buying a new phone. Also, at the end of its lifecycle, the device can be fully recycled, including the body that is made of recyclable plastics. The devices are assembled in partnership with Arima in China who invest in fair working conditions and fair wages for their workers.
But it's not just electronics that can benefit from daring design. The global fashion market, one of the most polluting of all (see for more details the chapter on Biological materials) can work on the design of products to make them as sustainable as possible. Let's look at three examples.
Textile waste is a key factor in the fashion life cycle. Globally, there are several state-run and privately focused programs looking to rescue fabric to prevent it from being discarded in landfills or burned. The current rate of recycling of textile wastes highlights the problem and the need to act - [estimates indicate that the rate of clothing recycling is only at 1%](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/resale-is-all-rage-fashion-brands-not-making-dent-unsustainable-levels-waste-2023-08-09/). A majority of the environmental impact of the fashion industry is at the production phase - [nearly 80% of the climate change impact of the apparel industry is at the design phase](https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/textiles-and-the-environment-the). Very few designers and production houses focus on innovation at the root of the problem. A large portion of this environmental impact is attributed to the significant loss of fabric at the cutting stage, which leads to a loss in energy, efficiency, and an increase in the rate of waste generation. Research indicates that [nearly 15% of the fabric which is required to construct a garment ends up as waste](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17543266.2021.1990416) as a result of deep-rooted and multi-faceted conventions of designing a garment. In the case of [outerwear for adults, the rate of fabric wastage fluctuates between 10% to 20%](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311900554_Precious_Cut_A_Practice-Based_Research_Toward_Zero-Waste_Design_by_Exploring_Creative_Pattern_Cutting_Methods_and_Draping_Techniques). Trousers or pants account for the wastage of 10% of the fabric, while blouses, jackets, and underwear account for around 20% to 25% of wastage. Using conventional methods of cutting fabric, it is impossible to achieve 100% utilization. The high rate of fluctuation is also dependent on other variables such as style of the garment, pattern shapes, fabric consistency, expertise of marker-maker, and garment conversion rate.\
[Synflux](https://www.synflux.io/), a Tokyo-based startup is looking to overcome the problems with traditional couture by utilizing Artificial Intelligence along with 3D printing technology. The company focuses on rediscovering the wheel by basing its foundational design elements on how a Kimono is manufactured due to its traditional take of reducing wastage, along with the utilization of emerging technology. Synflux runs machine-learning algorithms over the data collected to find the optimum garment pattern that reduces fabric waste to almost zero. The program then generates optimized fashion pattern modules composed of 2-Dimensional rectangles and straight lines (as seen with kimonos). These 2D modules that make up the overall garment are then modeled using computer-aided design (CAD) software to produce a fashion pattern for an item of clothing that is both comfortable and sustainable. By utilizing 3D-scanning technology alongside computer-aided design (CAD) software, Synflux is able to optimize garments to the unique body types of the user, independent from the ready-to-wear fashion system of clothes. The Synflux work process accounts for both traditional and zero waste design processes. The traditional cutting process entirely functions in the 2-Dimensional plane, which is how the initial design of the garment is started in the Algorithmic Couture Process. These designs are then scanned using AI, 3D printing, and CAD software to arrive at a point of high efficiency, high sustainability, and least wastage. The Synflux ideology is focused on the potential collaborative future of the apparel industry where physical stores would act as points of customer analysis, where the specific fit requirements and features will be assessed. This information will then be sent to labs and manufacturing units to design garments with high sustainability and perfect fit. The utilization of traditional roots to pattern designing coupled with the use of emerging technology to pattern cutting and garment construction has led to the company only wasting 3% of fabric as compared to the industry standard of 15% to 25%.
Screen capture from the instagram of synflux.io
The second example comes from Belgium.[ Resortecs](https://resortecs.com/), an acronym for REcycling, SORting, TEChnologies is a unique technology solution, leading the circular transition in fashion with heat-dissolvable stitching threads and thermal disassembly systems that make recycling easy. Resortecs drives their sustainable fashion solution by adopting a two-part solution to circularity in the textile industry: the Smart Stitch and the Smart Disassembly. Through targeted innovations in the way clothes are assembled and disassembled, Resortecs solutions empower fashion and workwear brands to rise to today’s environmental challenges at the pace and scale the planet needs. These are all achieved without compromising the creativity, design, and quality of clothing. Resortecs combined thermal engineering, industry design and chemical engineering to develop unique solutions to close the loop in fashion.
Resortecs’s Smart Stitch is a stitching thread with different melting points (150°C, 170°C and 190°C), which enables brands to transform their products into recyclable, circular pieces from design. It can be bio-based or synthetic. Their Smart Disassembly is the solution for multi-material disassembly, a low-emission thermal disassembly system that enables recyclers to unlock higher volumes of premium-quality materials, processing up to 4 million garments per year with low emissions and no material damage, which allows fabrics to be used repeatedly. Smart Disassembly is the world's first industrial-scale thermal disassembly system with a flexible capacity (ranging from 1 to 13 tons per day), with a processing speed that is five times faster than manual disassembly and a recycling rate as high as 90%.
The third example concerns the production of jeans.[ HNST](https://www.letsbehonest.eu/) (pronounced Honest Jeans) is a Belgian company that set out 6 years ago to create the most circular and sustainable jeans on the market, making their jeans 100% in Europe. Now, HNST is widely considered the most circular jeans. Their model is a tour de force that applies circular design, new supply chain strategies, textile innovation and sustainable textile dyeing. Founder Tom Duhoux states: “Our name is about transparency. We wanted to compromise as little as possible. And that worked out pretty good.” The journey of the HNST jeans starts with the collection of old jeans: each pair of HNST jeans is 56% recycled cotton. For the collection and sorting, they work with an NGO that employs underprivileged groups. People bring their old pairs to stores from a partner second hand store. In the first round of collection in September 2017, HNST collected over 6,000 jeans. Half of them were used to reproduce their circular jeans; the other half were still wearable and were resold; and a small fraction were processed into other textile products. In September 2018, HNST made another collection, netting another 11,000 jeans. How are they made?
* The jeans were processed into fibers and mixed with Tencel – a renewable fiber based on eucalyptus cellulose – to produce a new fabric. This step is executed in a local factory in Belgium, after which the fabric is shipped to Italy.
* A company called Italdenim uses a less environmentally polluting, non-chemical method to dye the fabric. Italdenim dissolves the indigo in water using electro cells. The microplastics normally used to adhere the indigo to the fabric are replaced by a starch-based paste containing chitosan. Both are renewable, biobased resources. This process makes HNST jeans better for the skin as they are made without any hazardous chemicals. For the final process, the jeans are sown by a team of 7 ladies in a small factory an hour’s drive from Milan.
* Finally, the jeans return to the HNST headquarters in Antwerp, Belgium. The jeans are sold through local retailers and their own webshop and shipped using sustainable packaging solution [Repack](https://www.originalrepack.com/).
Of course, clients can return their HNST jeans for them to be re-entered into the cycle. HNST’s whole supply chain is highly carbon efficient and part of the revenue is invested in planting trees equivalent to three times their total CO2 impact to tip the scale into positivity.
These are just some of the examples that the 4Revs program has collected over the years, and many more could be cited. We have seen how each of these experiences have addressed the long-term sustainability of everyday objects in a different way: some reimagine the product as we know it; many replace less sustainable materials with compostable or biodegradable solutions; others work on the possibility of disassembling the various components of the product; and others focus on materials management and the business model. Each of these cases teaches us that it is possible to overcome the "that's how it's always been done," and the "there's no alternative" mentality, that the linear economy and business as usual have led us to believe. Every company and design department that wants to continue thriving in the future must therefore take action to review its production and corporate management choices through a strategy of circular design, long-term thinking, and systemic thinking. The first step is reimagining design for a sustainable future.
