Ida Urmas, Paula Vastela and Anne Raudaskoski are back from Copenhagen, where the first workshop of the Nordic Circular Design Programme was held with 31 companies.
How did it go in Copenhagen, Paula?
I was pleasantly surprised by the level of engagement and the depth of the discussions between the participants and facilitators. Typically, during the very first workshop with a new group, it takes some time for meaningful discussions to develop. This time, however, there was no time wasted. From the outset, everyone was eager to dive into the topics at hand. These ranged from simple questions, like the meaning of certain acronyms, to much more complex discussions around Circular Design strategies and the business environment.
Personally, it was very important for me to have the opportunity to share the results of my recent thesis on identifying Green Transition value drivers with the audience and to hear their initial reactions. This was the first time I presented the findings to corporate decision-makers, aside from my thesis presentation at Hanken SSE in October. Learning what the participants found valuable and how they saw this approach being applied to their strategic work is something that will stay with me for a long time.
Overall, I learned so much from our discussions! I gained insights into the sensitivities surrounding certain materials used by participant companies, got a sense of how the Digital Product Passport is being piloted, and learned about the obstacles in making a take-back system fully functional to name few. I can’t wait to continue these discussions in future workshops!
Ida, can you tell us a bit more about the trip, what kind of workshops did you run?
We held the first live workshops of the programme, and the entire day was buzzing with energy in a beautiful Copenhagen location. The morning was dedicated to the executive track with the Circular Market Transition workshop, led by Ethica, while the afternoon session focused on the R&D track, featuring the Circular Product Strategies workshop led by the Danish Design Center.
What is the background for the programme, Anne?
The story starts in 2015, when when I was writing a report ‘Boosting Circular Design for a Circular Economy’ with support from a Dutch colleague, Arthur ten Wolde, currently the CEO of Ecopreneur.eu. The report focused on researching the EU Ecodesign Directive with recommendations on how the Directive should be developed to better support a circular economy.
I spent four weeks in the Netherlands, and as part of the research I traveled around the country by train to interview various companies, such as Philips, Interface, Mud Jeans and Rockwool to get to hear their views on circularity and the Directive.
In the aftermath of publishing the report in November 2015 (just before the first EU Circular Economy Action Plan came out!), Ethica was assigned by Design Forum Finland to develop a 3-day Circular Design Sprint; a business development programme to ideate circular solutions. After running tens of Sprints with companies of different sizes and sectors in various countries, we took the Sprint approach to the next level, designing and running Finland’s Circular Design Programme for 50 Finnish companies in 2022-2023 together with Design Forum Finland, the first national programme in the world. It got excellent feedback from the companies and of course we wanted to scale the concept, so here we are with the Nordic programme! And our goal is to organise Circular Design Programmes on all continents.
What is the approach you are using in the programme?
We started developing the tools and the framework with the first Circular Design Sprints in 2016. The triangle works as a high-level visualisation of the framework. It highlights the fact that the company’s circular journey should iterate between business design, product design and service design, i.e. customer relationship.
´Business´ corner refers to business design:
- Strategic choices through which the company aims to succeed and grow in a circular way
- Circular business model development & internal capacity building
- Developing a linear supply chain into a circular value chain
‘Service’ is about behavioural and service design:
- Reframing the customer’s role: from buyer to user and caretaker
- Understanding customer’s pains, gains, anxieties, comforts and expectations as well as using this understanding to create an irresistible and easy-to-use customer experience
- Creating psychological value into circular offering in addition to functional, economic and environmental value
‘Product’ refers to product design:
- Choosing materials and chemicals that are life-friendly
- Developing product features that enable value maintenance and multiple lifecycles
- Developing transparency and product data
All these three corners need to be aligned with natural ecosystems meaning that you should be aim for 100% solutions instead of being less bad.
Who are your partners in the programme, Ida? So, the concept is based on Ethica’s many years of work and experience, and we have excellent partners onboard: Cradlenet, a circular business network from Sweden, Danish Design Center, Norwegian Cluster for Circular Economy and Nordic Innovation as the co-financing partner.
Can you tell us what happens next, Anne? The second episode – which is available on most podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple..) – will be released on 19th November. The episode focuses on circular customer experience. The next workshop on both tracks will be held in December: the executive track focuses on how to create circular customer value and the R&D track workshop is about circular materials & chemicals.
Thank you, Ida, Paula and Anne! Will you keep us posted on the companies and the progress of the programme?
Absolutely!
Writer: Vilma Autio, Project Manager of the programme & Circular Economy Consultant
