Makers & Fixers Circular Economy & Grassroots Innovation: Ten Lessons Learnt
Professor Martin Charter, Director, The Centre for Sustainable Design @ UCA
- Circular Economy
- 'Consumer culture' is driving material consumption in western economies and is fuelled by cheap credit and low cost products
- Linear 'take-make-waste' economic thinking and practice is still dominant - we are still very good at producing waste!
- Circular Economy (CE) is focused on 'closing (material) loops', the more productive and efficient use of materials and extending the life of products circulating in the economy (and therefore reducing embodied materials and energy over lifecycle(s))
- CE is now on the policy agenda with the European Commission's CE policy paper to be published in July 2014
- Increasing fixing (or repair) is an important part of 'closing (material) loops' and is a key element in moving towards local (sustainable) consumption and production models
- CE will require changes in product design thinking, new business models, new materials/technologies, new knowledge and new skills
- Fixer skills are missing in many areas and declining in others as the proliferation low priced consumer products coupled with short product replacement cycles is disincentivising repair
- Implementing CE thinking can enable increased innovation, reduced costs, reduced environmental impact and increased jobs
- Reuse
- Reuse can be enabled through repair, refurbishment, reconditioning and remanufacturing
- Fixing (or repair) is one element of reuse
- An important concept related to reuse is product life extension
- Product life extension can be proactively designed-in (e.g. Xerox have designed systems to deliver photocopiers with multiple lifes) and/or reactive (e.g Reading Hackerspace 3D printed a component to fix and extend the life of a baby stroller)
- Emotional attachment to a product can be an important motivation to extending the life of both B2B products e.g. jeweller's tools and B2C products e.g. antiques
- Fixing ecosystem
- The fixing ecosystem is complex with many dimensions and role players
- Fixing is already mature in a number of product categories e.g. cars, etc
- Innovative approaches to fixing, upcycling and product life extension are emerging in some product categories e.g. electronics, clothing, etc and amongst new groups e.g. Repair Cafés
- Customer trends
- Fixer's behaviour can be classified according to individual's frequency of fixing activity from heavy/frequent fixing through to light/occasional fixing (and non-fixing)
- Fixing as a personal identity (or label) is emerging amongst some heavy/frequent fixers e.g. "I am a fixer" (and indicates the emergence of a fixing sub-culture)
- Fixpert is a description of a 'fixing expert' and is starting to be used more e.g. Restart's repair parties utilise fixperts to help solve individual repair problems
- Citizen driven fixing (as opposed to professional fixing) often happens individually in the home but is now emerging in collaborative groups through Repair Cafés and/or Hackerspaces
- Fixing business models
- Access to information to enable diagnosis of faults through video tutorials, fixing manuals, etc and the provision of spares/tools to enable the fixing of products are essential to citizen driven fixing
- Several companies e.g. Ifixit and espares have developed business models based on the above
- Service business models have only been adopted for certain products as product ownership is still dominant for many consumers
- 'Grassroots innovation'
- Citizen driven 'grassroots innovation' is being enabled by increased access to information, growth of social networking, open sourcing of product design files, wider adoption of new technologies e.g. 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) and the establishment of new Places & Spaces to enable making and fixing
- 'Grassroots innovation' is emerging directly from civil society (rather than through NGOs), and government and business appear to be disconnected from these developments
- Open Source (OS)
- OS access to software, designs and intellectual property is enabling individuals at grassroots level to create novel concepts for product and services (for profit and/or for social benefit)
- OS is a philosophy for many individuals involved in product and/or software hacking sub-cultures
- More widespread diffusion of OS CAD files for components related to small electrical and electronic items e.g. toys could help extend the life of products by providing access to component designs that can be manufactured through 3D printing
- 3D printing (or additive manufacturing)
- 3D printing of components can extend the life of products by enabling faulty components to be replaced rather than driving products prematurely to end-of-life
- A limited number of 3D printers have now been produced that can print using recycled plastic - a key challenge to increased activity is getting sufficient volume and quality of recycled plastic feedstock
- Biopolymers (e.g. PLA) are also starting to be used in 3D printing - as above volume and quality of feedstock is an issue
- Places & Spaces (for making and fixing)
- New types of Places & Spaces are being set up to enable experimentation
- This development is being driven by civil society rather than by NGOs, government or business
- The social dimension of these new Places & Spaces is important to many users e.g. meeting like-minded individuals, sharing ideas, information and knowledge
- Funding is a key issue to enable set up, operation and continuity of Places & Spaces
- Various funding sources are being utilised e.g. grants, subscriptions, donations (money/equipment), space rental, etc
- Legal and insurance costs related health & safety are key operational expenses of Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and Repair Cafés
- Symbiotic relationships are starting to emerge e.g. RDM Makerspace operates within RDM Campus based on shared space, equipment, knowledge, etc. RDM Campus is a collaboration between the Albeda College, Rotterdam University (of Applied Sciences) and the Port of Rotterdam Authority. The ambition is to make RDM Campus the innovation centre for the manufacturing industry of Rotterdam.
- New making (and potentially fixing) 'user groups' are also emerging as part of the making and fixing ecosystem e.g. RepRap (3D printers), Arduino (microprocessors), etc
- Places & Spaces (for making and fixing) can be: physical or virtual; multi location; translocational e.g. design, production and consumption (at different locations); urban or rural
- Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and Repair Cafés (Places & Spaces for making & fixing)
- Places for Making: can be described as organised places where individuals go to experiment and make products; these places include various organisational entities, facilities and types of equipment and range from FabLabs to Techshops and Makerspaces; sustainable or eco-innovation is not normally a consideration in 'Places for Making'
- Hackerspaces: are more informal Places & Spaces (compared to 'Places for Making') where individuals experiment, make, modify or fix products; hackerspaces are pre-dated by more anarchic hackspaces that have roots going back to the 1960s; some hackerspaces may start to emerge as labs and/or incubators for new product or enterprise development
- Repair Cafés: are informal places were groups of individuals come together to fix or upcycle products; they are a new phenomena and increasing rapidly in numbers; the product focus of Repair Cafés differs e.g. when electronics was added to the activities of the Brighton Repair Café attendance increased
- Other: various types of hybrid community based organisations are emerging that incorporate a mix of making, upcycling, fixing, recycling and café culture e.g. Goldfinger Factory and Remakery in London
© Martin Charter 2014 mcharter@ucreative.ac.uk
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Circular Economy & Grassroots Innovation
