Once a product comes to the end of its intended life, we need to do more to allow it to be returned, repaired or reused. Design has a vital role to play in this process, argues the president of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management.
I’ve been a Fellow of the RSA for several decades and currently have the privilege of spending a year as president of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management. With it came the opportunity to launch a report or piece of research that sets the theme for my presidential year. Given the name of the institution and the fact it has recently celebrated its 125-year anniversary, the expectation may have been of a well-meaning but dour tome that speaks to those who deal with rubbish but no wider.
That, however, was not my intention: conscious of future recycling targets, and the expectation that everything could and should be recyclable, and that within a circular economy world this [recycling] is one of the least desirable actions, I got to thinking… Rather than simply trying to bail out more stuff at a faster rate, what if we could change the paradigm? What if we could have less stuff to deal with from the get-go? As waste is an unintended consequence of our consumer society, how can we have less pruck?
Some from Northern Ireland will recognise ‘pruck’ as a generic term used to refer to things, items, stuff in general. So, ‘less pruck’ was adopted as a working title for my presidential report.
Rather than simply trying to bail out more stuff at a faster rate, what if we could change the paradigm? What if we could have less stuff to deal with from the get-go?
But where does waste really come from? It starts way before you or I decide that we no longer have a use for something. It often starts back at the beginning, at the design stage, where the utility of the item is first considered. It is something I have long had an interest in, and one of the main sparks around which this crystallised was the RSA and its Great Recovery Project back in 2012.
Through my presidential report, I wanted to consider the links between design and waste. How do they influence each other, and what steps could be taken to stop us wasting so much pruck? We know we need better design, but how can those of us who work in this sector influence that? And not just influence better design, but can we get to a place where we are designing for the emerging circular economy and challenging the amount of pruck created through current levels of consumption?
Waste managers get to see first-hand the impacts of society, the levels of consumption and how disposable design and imperfect service models contribute to the production of millions of tonnes of waste that we then deal with. Yet all this waste is made up of a collection of resources, commodities and materials that, if they came from better designed products and services, could be economically captured and managed by our sector in a way that would keep them in economic use. This would be the circular economy in action rather than circular economy inaction.
The concept of ‘turning off the tap’ of wasteful resources was what we wanted to explore. It’s something that needs to happen if we are to reduce the impact and footprint our activities have upon the environment. For material use in the UK, we will need in the region of a 40% reduction in use if we are to live within the limits of what the planet can supply. The resources and waste sector of today is sophisticated and recycles ever more materials, but it can still be tough to make the economics stack up for those items that are difficult to recycle.
Can we get to a place where we are designing for the emerging circular economy and challenging the amount of pruck created through current levels of consumption?
So, one of the keys to capturing more resources is in how products are designed. Not only do we need good design for the life of a product, we also need good design for the end of life of a product. Increased durability, of course, will make products last longer – but this will impact upon consumer rates and undermine GDP, no?
In fairness, there are advances in design and the application of eco-design techniques is improving. That said, full consideration is still not being given during the design process to how resources become categorised as waste at different stages within the supply chain – from the making and use of products through to their ultimate disposal. And this is important, as it has been estimated by the EU that 80% of a product’s environmental impacts are determined at the design stage. To see how that might be improved, it was first important to try to better understand the design process and what we really meant when we talked about design.
What we found is that the design process is more complex than people initially realise. It involves many stages and stakeholders, of which the need, wants, expectations and views are frequently not complementary or aligned. Even a design brief will have a variety of components, such as consumer behaviour, brand requirements, product characteristics and technical parameters, among others. These briefs may well be written in isolation and are not likely to have input from the sustainability teams, potentially leading to environmental factors being missed, overlooked, forgotten or even ignored.
Progress is happening in the UK, but in Europe we are seeing more rapid steps being taken using economic instruments such as extended producer responsibility to drive progress on reuse, repair and refill, and to transition away from single-use design.
When we considered who the designers were, it threw up a web of influencers and decision makers – a bigger, wider and messier picture than the simple idea of a sole designer with ultimate agency and autonomy to determine all parameters in the designing of products (and services). This led to the realisation that design professionals tend to be influencers rather than true decision-makers who responded to a bounded brief from a client, commissioning agent or other individual/organisation who initiates the design process.
So, if we try to engage with designers to get better design, we may not have as much impact as if we engage with this tier of decision-makers. It became apparent that while designers need better information, guidance and training on sustainable design principles, if we want to inform and influence the design of a product, then we need to focus on the people who are developing the design brief.
The interactions with the report’s steering group indicated that while we could attempt this engagement, businesses were not likely to change unless regulation required it, customers demanded it, or if it made clear commercial sense. Given this last one might require a huge pivot in thinking, the scale of the challenge quickly becomes apparent.
It is not doom and gloom though as there are already examples of good practice out there and a range of resources to support designers, several of which the report highlights and signposts. The RSA’s own Student Design Awards have helped to prompt and promote the sort of change that is needed. The report also highlights the positive impact regulation can have, when thoughtful and developed well. Progress is happening in the UK, but in Europe we are seeing more rapid steps being taken using economic instruments such as extended producer responsibility to drive progress on reuse, repair and refill, and to transition away from single-use design.
What we found is that, ultimately, altering design will take a team effort. The report highlights a series of recommendations and responsibilities that a variety of sectors need to take. This includes us wasters – we have always been part of the solution rather than the problem, but we need to work on engaging with designers and those who create design briefs. For much of our history, we’ve been beavering away, out of sight and mind, but, as the circular economy gathers momentum, we’re emerging blinking into the light.
Working with designers, collectively we can bring that focus from either end of the supply chain to work out how to minimise the amount of pruck wasted by design (rather than allow it to incrementally increase by default). In this way, there’s the promise for the waste management sector to contribute more greatly to the delivery of different outcomes [development of a circular economy] by collaborating more widely with others in the chain than has been the case in the past – we have all these valuable materials, commodities and resources after all…
Working in this manner, we can explain how changes in the design and management of pruck can ensure that they are handled in such a way that, as resources, they can be brought back for use in future products. In no small way, taking on board the thoughts and ideas in the report really could change the world, for the better.
Tim Walker is President of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management. His Presidential Report, Turning off the tap, can be found here.
