The Great Recovery project has enlightened, challenged, explored, connected and inspired. Most of all perhaps it has taken the circular economy out of the realm of the ‘expert’ and into everyday experience. It has taught us to recalibrate our relationships with our stuff and dared to question our current economic models.

This report is both a record of the activities and impact of The Great Recovery project over the last four years – as we pulled apart manufacturing systems and products to scrutinise the impact of design in the shift towards a more circular economy – and a guide for those wishing to understand and advocate the need for systemic change.

Working with support from Innovate UK we set out to:

• Build and connect the new and growing circular design community;
• Support and encourage new business entries to Innovate UK’s circular economy competitions;
• Feed research rooted in the design process and active investigation into the growing movement towards a circular economy.

Starting at the current end-of-life of things, we worked backwards, asking questions along the way. We connected designers to those that might know answers and opened the discussion out to material experts, chemists, resource recoverers, policy makers, business developers, consultants, logistics managers and others.

This report shares our process and belief that if you build a movement that is fuelled by creativity and reinforced by a dynamic network, things can really shift.

It is only when we look with new eyes at the complexities of 21^st century existence and start to see environmental problems as human problems that we will begin to change our behaviour and our systems. The Great Recovery, with its colourful design focus, its ability to address all sectors from one platform and appeal to the possibilities rather than the improbabilities, has started to inspire that change.

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Read our end of phase one report here.

The last three years have been an exciting journey of discovery into the world of design for a circular economy and have seen us build a wonderfully diverse network of thinkers, makers, sharers and doers. And so, earlier this month, we were delighted to gather these friends and supporters to celebrate our collective achievements and to reflect on the second phase of our work with Innovate UK.

The journey so far…

We took over Fab Lab London (itself celebrating its one year birthday this month) with a giant timeline plotting the multitude of events, teardowns, workshops and activities held by The Great Recovery since our inception in September 2012. Attendees were asked to populate this timeline with their experiences of being involved, and of the influence and impact the project has had on their work. (We also took the opportunity to ask our network for their suggestions on future direction of The Great Recovery – send us an email to info@greatrecovery.org.uk if you have any thoughts on this).

Voices from our network

We were delighted to hear from a number of our network during the evening as we reflected on the fantastic journey of the project so far. Our particular thanks went to Nick Cliffe and his colleagues at Innovate UK, whose support has enabled and championed the work of The Great Recovery.

Design is at the heart of our work and we were delighted to be joined by Rich Gilbert from The Agency of Design, textile designer Ella Doran, and Craig Anderson from the Furniture Re-use Network who each talked about the benefits they have felt from their involvement with The Great Recovery and the way it has informed their practice.

Incoming RSA Director of Economy, Enterprise and Manufacture, Tony Greenham, expressed the RSA’s continuing commitment to working on the circular economy as a crucial part of building a sustainable, fair and dynamic economy.

“Save our Sofas’

Turning Fab Lab’s boardroom into a cinema for the evening, we were thrilled to screen our latest film ‘Save our Sofas’ – an extended cut of our design residency work with SUEZ – which will soon also be available on the Community Chanel. We’d like to give special thanks to film maker Paul Wyatt for his fantastic work on this, and on all of our films.

Tell us your stories

We’d like to thank everyone who came along and contributed their feedback for making the evening such a success. And of course to all those hundreds of you who couldn’t make it on the night but have still played a part in our story so far.

We are now collating the reflections and insights gathered into our next publication, for release in early 2016.

If you couldn’t make it to this event but have been part of our journey so far and would like to share your reflections, please do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.