Collaborative Circular Design: Incorporating Life Cycle Thinking into an Interdisciplinary Design Process

To evolve fashion and textiles within the circular economy an interdisciplinary approach encompassing a range of life cycle perspectives is required, facilitating this collaboration requires new thinking and tools. The research presented in this paper was explored through a European Union Horizon 2020 funded project, Trash 2 Cash (T2C), where collaborative ‘life cycle thinking’ (LCT) tools were developed to integrate multiple expert perspectives within the design process. The research positioned material scientists, industry stakeholders, consumer behaviour and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) researchers into the heart of an iterative design process, tools were developed between and tested through consortium workshops over a 21-month period. Several key findings proved the value in the use of these interdisciplinary LCT methods, alongside new insights into barriers and opportunities for future circular material developments. Designing tools for collaborative research and the sharing of knowledge in this context was instrumental in helping to promote social exchange and the building of communities within the project and beyond. This work provides an important basis for understanding how to bring the theory of circularity into a networked industry practice.

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