But this transition is only possible through transparent and open cooperation. And it’s a change process that calls for more than sustainable products: it demands investment, new business models and long-term choices that may not always focus on the simplest route. Thanks to their market position and scale, large companies are major players in driving this transition.
Designers also have an important professional responsibility. Not only towards manufacturers when it comes to inventing and developing products, services and projects that optimise sustainability. But also towards consumers with respect to meeting needs, creating awareness and encouraging them to make the most sustainable, circular choices possible.
In the coming years, the partners of this Embassy – ArtEZ, CIRCO, DeMeeuw, Design Academy Eindhoven, DSM-Niaga, ECOR, Firm of the Future, FrieslandCampina, Gielissen Interiors | Exhibitions | Events, Hogeschool van Amsterdam, IKEA Nederland, NS, Provincie Noord-Brabant, KPMG, RB, Renewi, TU Delft, TU/e, Wageningen University & Research, Yksi Expo, Dutch Design Foundation and VanBerlo – will team up to work on practical solutions in meetings, network meetings, workshops and labs. This will unite industry, designers, policy makers, product specialists and users in efforts to initiate and encourage real-world change.
Dutch Design Week 2019
An exhibition in the Innovation Powerhouse with numerous participants—in particular large companies—showed that circular is not just about sustainable products, but about a transition, a process that often demands entirely new business models. The presentation showed visitors the degree to which the participating companies have a stake in embracing sustainability and that, as consumers, visitors can make informed choices. At the same time, presentations by SMEs could be seen at Yksi Expo, plus a number of projects, concepts and experiments by young designers. In addition to the exhibition, at DDW, the Embassy of Sustainable Design was a hotspot for experts and interested parties to discuss current practices and concrete challenges and with this develop a network of change agents, entrepreneurs, pioneers and designers.
Curator: Leonne Cuppen
Through her company Yksi Connect, Leonne Cuppen makes sustainable and circular design tangible and concrete. Drawing on her extensive network, she connects organisations, companies and designers and develops experimental projects and innovative concepts. Not only exhibitions and presentations at Yksi Expo on Strijp S in Eindhoven (600 m2, with a shop and special tea bar) but throughout the world, from Beijing to Barcelona and from Moscow to Madrid. Leonne Cuppen spotlights Dutch Design, young design talent and the relationship between design, technology, architecture and other art disciplines.
Curator: Teun van Wetten
Teun is design director at VanBerlo, where they believe that the best way to define the future is by playing with it first. Through his work he knows the challenges and opportunities of sustainability when operating at scale and the importance of collaboration and partnership. His vision “innovation and sustainability both offer complex challenges, they should be approached the same way: Holistic, agile and human centered.”
Besides his work at VanBerlo, Teun acted as the external graduation examiner for the Man & Motion department at Design Academy Eindhoven to warrant the standard of design excellence from an industry perspective. For Teun the Embassy for Sustainable Design is a means to inspire and empower others.
