Businesses who want to be profitable, innovative and progressive will look to reduce the volumes of waste they produce, will think about the way their products are made and distributed, and what happens to them when they reach their end of life.” Government Review on Waste Policy in England 2011, Defra
Sophie Thomas, Co-Director of Design of RSA’s Great Recovery Project is investigating the role of design in the circular economy, while SITA UK’s Stuart Hayward-Higham, Technical Development Director tells us about how we take a circular economy concept from philosophy to tangible and practical industrial solutions.
PROGRAMME:
13.00-13.05 Chair’s welcome: Will Date, News Editor, letsrecycle.com
13.05-13.20 Sophie Thomas, Co-Director of Design, RSA
13.20-13.35 Stuart Hayward Higham, Technical Director, SITA UK
13.35-14.00 Questions to the panel
SOPHIE THOMAS – CO-DIRECTOR OF DESIGN, RSA
Sophie has been working in sustainable design and material process for over 15 years, which has fuelled her curiosity about why things are the way they are. She has extensive practical experience in the design and production of award-winning and highly sustainable communication pieces, and is Founding Director of Thomas Matthews Communication Design. A long term interest in materials led Sophie to share her experience of closed loop thinking with other designers, and to found The Great Recovery in 2012. She has worked with major organisations including Procter and Gamble and Samsung on new models for circular business
WHAT WILL SOPHIE DISCUSS?
The RSA’s Great Recovery project has been engaging designers and manufacturers with issues of waste, resource use and the circular economy. The first focused design residency, run by the Great Recovery in partnership with SITA UK project takes place between December and early February and will involve exploring Surrey waste and re-use sites with a group of chosen designers. The ultimate aim is to discover new opportunities for designing out waste and recovering maximum material value from the bulky waste stream. By bringing creative value to traditional waste sites and by ‘immersing’ designers in current disposal processes, we hope to uncover challenging hotspots and finally to develop designs for new products or services that can be shared as best practice in the industry. Tune in, and hear from Sophie who will investigate the role of design in the circular economy and her observations and experience on the crucial relationship between material designers and waste managers.
STUART HAYWARD-HIGHAM, TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, SITA UK
Stuart Hayward-Higham is currently responsible for non-bidding emerging development activities in SITA UK, delivering tools, techniques and information to meet the business imperative.Main activity themes include harnessing waste as a resource, energy and bio-fuels manufacture, sorting, extraction and value enhancement for waste mix resources and the increasing influence of carbon.
WHAT WILL STUART DISCUSS?
Stuart will be examining how to industrialise ‘circularity’ through a process driven approach to identifying the opportunities, prioritising them and creating the conditions to deliver the solutions. Attendees will learn how to identify catalyst changes in their business and coordinate their delivery, whilst collaborating on opportunities, mapping processes and picking the early winner projects. Areas of focus will include linking circular activities together, be it through innovation hubs or through the supply chain, monitoring and fixing progress, and how to harness innovators both internally and externally. By the end of the webinar, attendees will understand how using the new approach to design, incorporating not only functionality but system usage and recovery, and the leasing economy must be adopted in order to retain products that are too valuable to lose!
This is a must attend, FREE webinar for anyone who is interested in long term, holistic approaches to efficient, sustainable and profitable business operations.
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