Besides the way how you design products your whole business should become eco-effective. What are the easy steps to take? And what can be done with a little more effort? Today I will show you some examples in the Netherlands, because one of the things you can do is to stimulate the local economy.
Last month’s article you read about the way consumers perceive recycled materials.
And you got tips on which product aspects are important for which type of consumer group. But what kind of design does the consumer want? Wouldn't it be a good idea to ask the consumer? A conscious designer who is working directly with consumers, who she prefers to call fashion wearers, is Hasmik Matevosyan. I wanted to know why she is working this way and how she does it. Last month you read my article about recycled fibres and how you can design with them. This article is about the way users perceive items made from recycled materials and which factors qualify the acceptance of a product. The information in this blog article is derived from a research done by Saxion and fits very well with my view on users’ needs.
Multiple factors define the perception of the user of which the following four are dominant:
For me recycling of consumer textiles is a difficult issue. On one hand I like to work with mono-materials, knowing what is inside the material, not using toxic chemicals. Because when using recycled content, multiple fibres and chemicals are mixed which makes it difficult to know what is inside your material. On the other hand I like recycled fibres because we already have a lot of textiles that are now thrown away and that can be respun into yarn, which reduces the use of raw materials.
What do you have to know as a designer about post-consumer mechanically recycled yarns? There is a lot of attention for the circular economy at the moment. I recently read the report from WRAP. This report asks the question whether there is a business case for circular business models in the clothing sector. Let me share with you the findings.
Traditional business models are vulnerable to rising input costs and particularly raw material costs. (p. 9) Consumer goods businesses have developed business models that are predicated on cheap raw materials and labour costs. Fashion businesses have globalized sourcing raw materials and labour from low-cost countries in order to make a profit. (p.10) Now new roads need to be explored in order to have a feasible and profitable business in the future. When produced in low cost labour countries, the true costs of production have not been completely factored in. (p.11) In the report they mean costs like water use, which are rarely monitored in these countries, but I think they should also mean the low salary and poor conditions the factory workers are working in. These workers pay with their lives for your garment. The business models that are explored in this report are models that extend the life of clothes and increase the proportion of garments that are re-used instead of being discarded prematurely. (p.3) These models are examined on commercial viability and scalability. The following models are explored: Recently I read the report "Investigating the role of design in the circular economy" from The Great Recovery project in the UK. From that report I like to share with you the parts that will help you to design eco-effective. What really comes forward in this report is the importance of design to create a good impact. It all starts at the design stage. But in order to make the design work it is important that from every aspect of the supply chain there is someone involved with his own field of expertise. "Most of the time something is designed for effective manufacturing, not effective recovery. One of the designers expressed his dismay on visiting material recovery centres: All the amount of time, effort and detail that product designers spend putting into their work is roundly mocked at the end of the device's lifecycle when it is destroyed by an all purpose crushing machine." (p31)
That is not what we want, isn't it? So let's design for a circular economy! In the report they mention four ways of designing: CEO’s of consumer goods companies (fashion and apparel in particular) are waiting for customer demand before they start to produce better, more sustainable products. The report of Texsture shows there IS an increasingly consumer demand for responsible products in EU countries.
Texsture launched a new report about purchasing decisions of consumers. This is a report that combines multiple reports on consumer purchasing decisions to show the need for sustainable products. One of the quoted reports is the one of Marthe Hårvik Austgulen, which I discussed with you earlier. The majority of consumers make purchasing decisions on an individual basis. Important however, given choice, sufficient information and a comparable price/quality ratio among products, Texsture found that a majority of consumers are willing to choose the most ethical product among those available to them, despite begin valued at a slightly higher price. It is without doubt that brands and retailers are required to play their part in order to give consumers easier access to the products they truly wish to purchase. Interesting highlights from the report: I am currently participating in a four-week Circular Economy course. The Circular Economy is an overall philosophy incorporating multiple methods like Cradle-to-Cradle, Biomimicry and the performance economy.
“A circular economy seeks to rebuild capital, whether this is financial, manufactured, human, social or natural. This ensures enhanced flows of goods and services. The system diagram illustrates the continuous flow of technical and biological materials through the ‘value circle’.”[1] I recently read the report ‘Consumer perspectives on eco-labeling of textiles’ written by Marthe Hårvik Austgulen. Aim of the study is to answer the question if European consumers are of the view that they have a responsibility for solving the environmental challenges in the textile industry, and if they have the necessary knowledge to take that responsibility.[p15] This report also shows if eco-labeling on textiles helps consumers in making their choice. I will tell you my findings.
“Is it always necessary to add certain functions to products in order to market them as odour-controlling or water-proof in the most extreme situations, which many people may never encounter? Is there an over reliance on functional treatments? And who is asking for these functions?” This asked Tone Skardal Tobiasson herself in an article she wrote for Ecotextile News magazine.[1] She is the editor of NICE. This made me think. Maybe we go too far and innovate for the sake of innovating while we could better ask ourselves the question: What does the user want to do with his product? Going back to the subject of odour-control specifically. “Some fibres naturally repel odours. Synthetics do not, quite the opposite. Cotton absorbs smell, but recent research from the Norwegian Institute for Consumer Research has found that it can also be aired out. I also found that synthetics treated with so-called odour-control, or nano-silver, smelled less than untreated synthetics, but more than wool and cotton that was exposed to the same amount of sweat.” You must note that there also exist synthetic sportswear that have special hollow fibres with specific shapes, that are knitted or woven in such a way that they move the skinmoisture away from the skin to the outside of the fabric where it can evaporate, for example Advansa Coolmax. This means not all synthetic fabrics will smell badly. But maybe it is good to think again if a specific function on that high level is really needed, or that a natural fabric can do the job as well with the right care from the users. It just depends on the functionality a user is seeking. [1] Tobiasson,T.S., Ecotextile news, Issue 54 April/May 2013, p57
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