Design for circular futures through distributed repair

Abstract

The Circular Economy (CE) is attracting business, policy and academic interest through potential monetary and environmental savings, by material and product lifetime extension. However, it overlooks the role of consumption in achieving its goals, posing less emphasis on reuse and repair for instance. Focusing on the ‘inner’ CE loop of repair could unlock underaddressed potential, especially if developed in conjunction with emerging sociotechnical changes of distributed production. These are considered adaptable, flexible and resilient which exploit the power of networks. In this paper, we propose that distributed production (through open design) can be leveraged to foster the wider uptake of repair practice and business. To this end, four scenarios are represented in which design is a strategic tool to foster repair, at different scales and level of peoples’ engagement.