Nordic lifestyle, brands and design
“When it comes to sustainability the Nordics are doing very well, with two exceptions: climate and sustainable consumption and production,” according to H.E. Paula Lehtomäki, Secretary General, Nordic Council of Ministers, speaking at the opening of the Nordic Circular Summit 2020. The transition towards a circular economy is not possible without a fundamental change in consumer behaviours and industry production. Is it possible to build a 100% circular fashion and furniture industry? If so, what does it take?
Mask Stool by Mater
The need for a circular transition—from the linear value chains to a circular economy—is becoming ever more evident. As we observe a growing number of small and larger brands committing to the circular transition, there is a lot to be learned from their learning and development processes. What are the barriers that prevent increasing circularity of consumer behaviour, and what is restricting increasing circularity in production? What possibilities do the circular economy offer for brand and product development?
The lifestyle sectors—incorporating design, fashion and furniture—are important drivers for circular and sustainable production and consumption. As human beings, we are surrounded by fashion and furniture, which increasingly represent who we are and who we would like to be. As concerns for sustainability grows, the wish to act accordingly puts a growing pressure on all lifestyle brands. This article will highlight some of the pioneering brands that are leading the way in their respective industries, driving the transition to a circular economy.
“Designing for circularity from a systemic perspective entails looking at product and material flows, creating loops and extending the product lifecycle.”
Changing existing structures and habits is a difficult and complex process, which relies on pioneers willing to take risks and act differently, and on the remaining community to be willing to learn from these change makers. Furthermore, it requires an in-depth understanding of what “sustainable” truly means.
Eva Karlsson, Houdini Sportswear AB
Designing for circularity
“Designing for circularity from a systemic perspective entails looking at product and material flows, creating loops and extending the product lifecycle,” says Eva Karlsson, CEO, Houdini Sportswear AB, a progressive outdoor firm based in Stockholm. On a journey to become a regenerative company, Houdini has been working very focused and strategically to understand the impact that both production and consumption of these products has on the world. The Swedish firm uses a systemic approach to sustainability, based on the research on planetary boundaries, from the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), an international research centre on resilience and sustainability science that was launched in 2007.
One example from the textile industry is the complex nature of choosing between materials. “While moving from linear to circular polyester is a given, the option of going for circular—or recycled—or bio-based polyester requires expert knowledge on sustainability,” says Karlsson. Bio-based polyester increases the pressure on planetary boundaries such as “land-use change,” which is one of the great sustainability challenges we are facing this century. Hence, Houdini uses recycled materials rather than bio-based products and aims to have a 100 per cent circular collection in 2022, “with nature as the blueprint for our circular principals.”
Betina Simonsen, Lifestyle & Design Cluster
Lifestyle products
The Nordics have a large market for lifestyle products. “Lifestyle products have become cheaper in the last two decades, and the products also have a lower quality now than before,” says Betina Simonsen, CEO, Lifestyle & Design Cluster, which has worked with circular economy programmes since 2012. The Danish cluster has over 300 companies, industry organisations, knowledge and research institutions as partners, running projects on innovation and entrepreneurship, digital competence and circular business models. Lifestyle & Design Cluster works to promote innovation and sustainable growth primarily in the small and medium-sized furniture and clothing companies as well as in the creative industries.
Interior and furniture
Increased income and standards of living in the Nordic countries has led to increased consumption. The Nordic consumer base also spends a high percentage of their disposable income on interior and furniture. On the one hand, this means that the material footprint of Nordic consumption is particularly high. On the other hand, the Nordic market offers a large customer base for companies that want to invest in circular production and business models.
Henrik Marstrand, Mater A/S
“We must be curious, and look at new waste streams that can be employed,” says Henrik Marstrand, CEO and founder, Mater A/S, a Copenhagen-based interior and furniture company. Founded in 2006, the firm works with circular thinking and upcycling of plastic materials. The biggest success came when Mater reissued a garden chair, of a 1955 design, by the late Danish furniture designer Nanna Ditzel, made from reused fishing nets and upcycled plastics. A major source of ocean waste globally is actually discarded fishing nets. Giving value to debris is a great way to incentivise cleaning up the waste in our oceans and on land.
We know we need to keep the oceans clean, in order to ensure the quality and health of our global ecosystems. Then giving value to the wastes is a great way of incentivising the waste clearing, in the oceans as elsewhere on the planet.
Ocean by Nanna Ditzel represents sustainable and innovative thinking and was awarded Wallpaper* Magazines Design award in early 2019. It is made from recycled fishing nets and recycled hard plastic. One Ocean Chair uses 960 grammes of ocean plastic waste.
Ocean Chair by Jørgen & Nanna Ditzel for Mater
The Ocean Chair is made from fishing nets that are reclaimed from the oceans. Each chair holds at least 960 grammes of reused fishing net, in addition to 1.2 kilo of upcycled plastics—that is more than two kilos of waste per chair. Furthermore, each chair saves 1.6 kilo of CO2 emissions compared to virgin equivalents.
For any company, the key to success is to make design and products commercially sustainable, and in this case, that means getting enough mass of materials available for mass production. This is what Mater has achieved, using discarded materials for high-end products and hence giving value to what is otherwise considered waste.
Extending clothing life
The Nordic consumption of fashion and garments has increased rapidly over the past few decades. “While the overall spending has increased, the price per piece has decreased. Hence, we buy a lot more pieces than before,” says Simonsen. A 2019 study by RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and Chalmers University of Technology (“Environmental assessment of Swedish clothing consumption, a Mistra Future Fashion Report, 2019), discovered that prolonging the lifetime of fashion items has great potential for reducing the material and carbon footprint of clothing consumption. Longer use of garments was found to be a very effective intervention—twice as many uses per garment lifecycle eliminated almost 50 per cent of impact regardless of impact category, according to this report focusing on the impact of Swedish clothing consumption.
Dr. Else Skjold
“Working through the entire product life, we are trying to find out how we can extend the lifetime of products,” says Else Skjold, Ph.D. in Design and Sustainability, Associate Professor and Head of Fashion, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation (KADK), based in Copenhagen. She is a specialist in sustainable business development in the fashion and textile industry. In 2020, KADK launched a new Master’s degree programme—“Clothing & Textiles: New Landscapes for Change”—that educates clothing designers to develop new markets and new customer bases, and to understand how design creates value during its use stage. This is key in terms of being able to operate both in the traditional market and in a circular economy.
New business models
The Royal Danish Academy and Ganni are currently collaborating and looking at learning more about the lifecycle of garments and textiles. As part of her research, Dr. Skjold observed sellers on a resale platform for Ganni garments over an 18-month period. They find that young consumers—in particular girls—have integrated reselling into their habits. “They buy garments with the aim of reselling them,” says Dr. Skjold.
The research is looking at how fashion brands can restructure their business model to move the cashflow from the selling of new products, to products that already exist. “There is a—currently unexplored—potential for companies to tap into the use phase of garments and fashion products,” Dr. Skjold believes. “This includes maintenance, repairs, reuse and the reselling of products”.
Ganni is seeking to learn how they can enter the market for second-hand products in order to tap into the subsequent stages of the garment’s lifecycle after the time of purchase. One example is the Ganni Repeat platform, which allows customers to rent upcycled fashion garments from Ganni and Levi’s.
In the project with Ganni, every garment was tracked with an identity tag, in order to track the journey. “There is currently a lack of data on the fashion industry. We do not have data on how durable products are,” Lauren Bartley, Head of Sustainability and CSR, Ganni A/S, Denmark. The idea is that if the brand knew more about a certain product and understood, for example, that a certain dress becomes loose at the armholes after a time of use, this will feed back into the design process.
Lauren Bartley, GANNI
“Then we must design those armholes with stronger fabric or seams, so that it will be more durable,” says Bartley. This is the kind of information that the industry needs to extract from its users, in order to design better and prolong the life of products.
Changing habits
The aim of the circular economy is to design out wastes, and create closed loops for materials. It entails a break with the linear economic value chains that are so engrained in today’s society and economic structure that it can be hard to identify the alternatives. It’s easy to disclaim responsibility for the circular transition, but the truth is that it lies in the hand of all of us—both governments, businesses and consumers. We need to design out waste and pollution, and we need to extend product lifetime, and while this is partly a question of better and more durable design—it is also a question of changing consumer habits. We need both producers and consumers to push for higher quality products with a longer lifetime, which is a necessary step in the transition to a truly circular economy.
As global environmental awareness is rising, the interest in circular economy solutions and business models is growing. It is very encouraging to see that the market for second-hand products is rapidly increasing – especially among young consumers. In 20 years’ time, the market for second-hand clothes and items could outgrow the market for new garments. “There is a large potential for fashion companies to tap into the growing market for reuse and reselling of products,” says Bartley.
From Lifestyle & Design Cluster’s perspective, the interest in embarking on more circular business models is accelerating at the moment, and brands are now embracing the whole value and supply chain in their search for more robust and sustainable ways of designing and doing business. Many more examples could be mentioned and inspiration from concrete cases and from all corners of the lifestyle industry is expected to grow rapidly in the near future.
This article has been written by Marie Storli and Peter Michel Heilmann, based on the speeches and conversations that took place during the “Fashion & Furniture” session of the Nordic Circular Summit 2020, an official WCEF Side Event held on November 26-27. A milestone virtual event gathering over 1,000 delegates from around the world, the summit was co-hosted by the Nordic Circular Hotspot and Nordic Innovation. The session was hosted by Lifestyle & Design Cluster and moderated by Betina Simonsen, its CEO.