Circularity
Using the power of circular design to tackle the most pressing environmental and societal problems of our time.
Circularity Made Better
About
The Circularity Lab aims to convene and empower Ireland’s design community to co-create innovative and circular design solutions to the most pressing environmental and societal problems of our time.
Why design and circularity
Transitioning from linear to circular requires us to redesign everything – from materials, to products, to services, to systems. Therefore, we believe that designers have a pivotal role to play.
Our research and who we work with
We bring together key industry stakeholders from high impact value chains (e.g textiles, food, plastics, mobility) , NGOs, government and academia, to challenge and investigate the current linear state-of -play, and ideate and test innovative materials, products, services and systems that are just and circular by design.
How we work
Due to the urgency of the challenges we address, our action-research approach aims to simultaneously pursue theoretical and practical outcomes. We prioritise participatory, pre-competitive, multi-stakeholder processes whereby diverse actors collaborate to achieve a common goal. We aspire to translate all findings into scalable, open access tools, reports and case studies that can be widely adopted.
Projects
Our growing project portfolio spans sectors such as textiles & apparel, healthcare, jewellery and agri-food, covering topics such as medical device design, post-consumer textiles waste, secondhand stigma and more.
Circular by Design Pilot
Circular by Design (CbD) is a first-of-its-kind professional training programme, developed and delivered by DCCI and the Creative Futures Academy at NCAD, that supports textile and apparel designers, brands and manufacturers to transition to circular design practises in every step of their production process, value chain and business model.
Charity Shop Challenge
The Charity Challenge unites a cross-disciplinary creative team of designers and educators with Ireland's leading charity retailers, national reuse organisations and governmental circular and environmental experts to creatively redesign the charity shop model and enable and empower Irish citizens to rethink their lifestyles and choose secondhand clothing, first.
EyeVu
Developing a viable circular economy business model that reduces the amount of waste generated (versus a single-use model) throughout an endoscope's life.
