Symposium Circular Circumstances

How can we manage to save resources and close open loops? What prevents companies and people from producing and consuming for the cycle? Do we really have to own every product or do we prefer to see a bicycle or a T-shirt as a service? And ultimately, how can we simply consume less? These and many other questions were at the centre of our semester project.
To find answers, Designhaus Halle, in cooperation with the Sorry we’re open! project, organised the symposium ‘Circular Circumstances or how to approach more sustainable consumption?’ on the topics of circular design, sustainable consumption alternatives and recyclable material applications.
Becky Early, Peter Post and Alexander Wiefel, who research and work in this field, were invited as speakers.
Becky Early is a circular economies researcher, textile designer and professor at the Centre for Circular Design at Chelsea College of Arts. In her lecture, she presented, among other things, the Service Shirt, a T-shirt developed by her that is intended to go through as many life cycles as possible and be worn for a long time by being redesigned again and again and adapted to current trends. Peter Post, on the other hand, is a brand strategist, UX and service designer who focuses on circular economies by developing digital interfaces and ‘digital twins’ of products. The aim of his approach is to bring consumers closer to sharing concepts and repair approaches. Alexander Wiefel, closed-loop designer at the start-up holypoly, showed how products and services can be designed so that they are attractive to consumers, economically relevant and completely recyclable in the end. One example of this is the take-back system that holypoly has developed together with baby bottle manufacturer NUK. Used bottles are collected, returned to the material cycle and then recycled into new products. The speakers’ presentations were followed by a moderated panel discussion to clarify open questions and provide space for dialogue.
The different perspectives of Becky Early, Peter Post and Alexander Wiefel led to exciting insights and stimulated an intensive debate on the challenges and opportunities of circular economy.