Circular design

Circular design aims to make products and processes more sustainable by minimising waste and reusing materials. Traceability helps to ensure that products are safe, origin-labelled and ethically produced. Together, these two things enable businesses and consumers to make more sustainable choices and promote a more sustainable future.

Giving new life to old products and materials

When the material, component or product has finally served its first purpose, we are there to help it find its new purpose. Combining design and circular economy expertise, we develop innovative products where the remaining function and appearance are preserved and used in new applications – without complicated recycling processes. Only the imagination sets the limits for upcycling.

But, we also need to get better at doing it right from the start, i.e. designing for a long life, for reuse and for recycling. Indeed, the design stage determines how well the product will be able to be recycled or reused when it reaches the end of its first life cycle.

Meet the experts

Karolina Kazmierczak

Project Manager, PhD

Max Bekken Björkman

Project Manager, MSc

Nils Ólafur Egilsson

Project Manager, MSc

Sophie Charpentier

Project Manager, PhD

Maria Pettersson

Project Leader, MSc

Project

Design for Circular Fishing Gear  

Design for circular fishing gear is one of several sub-projects within the Swedish Maritime and Water Authority’s (HaV) government mandate on the collection of fishing gear and recreational boats.

Bild från västkusten, sjöbodar
Project

LoopSpeaker – Reusing car speakers inside and outside the car

The LoopSpeaker project aims to map the conditions for, and propose, how speakers from “scrap cars” (cars that for various reasons have reached the end of their respective life cycles) can be reused.