Sustainable Circular Economy (SCE)
Sustainable Circular Economy (SCE)
Sustainability has become an imperative response to challenges such as global resource scarcity, climate change, and environmental destruction. Various design disciplines have the potential to significantly contribute to sustainable product development through their methodologies. In the realm of industrial design and product development, terminologies like eco-design, C2C, and design for sustainability have gained traction as labels for environmentally friendly design concepts. These are complemented by social design aimed at fostering a more equitable world.
To accommodate the economic aspect and facilitate "green growth," the emphasis is currently on circular design, which can foster a circular economy. This design approach should be resource-efficient, recyclable, and inclusive to engage as many users as possible.
In our research projects at the Chair of Technical Design, our objective is to contribute to the formation of a Sustainable Circular Economy. A key part of our focus lies in ensuring the acceptance of these initiatives. In the past, the user perspective was often overlooked in attempts to implement sustainable designs, leading to their rejection by both society and the market.
Thus, our mission at the professorship is to explore the potential of sustainable product design and related approaches, thereby revealing new design perspectives. We aim to comprehensively understand these relationships, derive insights, and subsequently decrease the risks associated with the sustainability approach or at least make them visible and measurable.
We have encapsulated our objectives in a sustainability strategy, which identifies areas for action to guide our work.
-Strengthen participation:
The professorship designs a participation process for the further development and implementation of the sustainability strategy in which all stakeholders - for example teaching and research staff, students or support staff - can be involved.
-Improve networking and communication on the topic of sustainability: The professorship networks within the university, communally, nationally and internationally with other sustainability actors as well as universities and communicates its activities in this area comprehensively and transparently.
-Promote and expand sustainability research: The professorship formulates approaches to solutions for sustainable developments; relevant issues are increasingly taken into account and promoted in all of the professorship's research profile lines. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary sustainability research will be further expanded.
-Provide resources:
Priority will be given to providing infrastructure, resources and materials for research and teaching related to sustainability, as well as organisational and personnel support for applications and implementation.
-Achieve visibility and transparency: The visibility and transparency of sustainability research, in particular through approaches to solutions for SDGs, scientific publications and by using the campus as a real laboratory, is promoted.
-Strategic anchoring of sustainable circular economy and circular design:
Sustainable circular economy should be enshrined in the educational objective and in other important strategic documents, and should be taken into account in the planning and assessment of study programmes.
-Use reallaboratory activities:
By using the TU Dresden as a real laboratory in which findings from research are translated into sustainability, the TU Dresden lives up to its role model function for the economy and society. In the future, the Chair of Technical Design should increasingly act as a committed partner for cooperation.
- We follow the field of action according to the TU Dresden's sustainability strategy, but also aim to be a role model and pilot for other sustainability actors and to make results available to the general public.
- Reduce resource consumption:
Emissions of environmentally and climate damaging substances as well as the consumption of resources by the professorship are reduced to a necessary minimum.
-Life cycle assessment:
Decisions regarding buildings, technical facilities and infrastructure (environmental aspects, social aspects, costs) will take into account the respective life cycle.
-Sustainable procurement:
Environmental, social and ethical aspects are taken into account as important criteria in the procurement of materials, products and services.
Raising awareness and communication: A topic- and needs-specific networking of actors within the TD department is promoted, as well as the active involvement of university members in the sustainable development process and its further development through dialogue.
- Exchange and networking: TD makes greater use of its regionally, nationally and internationally effective networks in order to anchor aspects of sustainability and circular economy in them and to find innovative approaches to solutions in the network.
- Reporting and transparency: Targeted communication and the transparent and creative presentation of the goals achieved enable all status groups to inform themselves about the progress of the development process and to adapt agreed measures to achieve the goals.
-Feasibility studies and prototyping: These are central and established components of successful design processes. In the context of sustainable development processes, they also offer us the opportunity to involve all stakeholders - especially future users - in the design process and thus to identify risks, problems and challenges at an early stage.