Launched at the end of October under the impulse of the Luxembourg Creative Industries Cluster of Luxinnovation and with the support of the Ministry of the Economy, the Circular By Design Challenge is open to all companies in the creative industries sector.
Its objective is to enable the development of new design solutions and innovative business models that are in line with the principles of the circular economy. Five categories were put forward for applicants to send in their ideas: Fashion design, Mobility, Product design, Interior design and Design as a service.
The jury of this first edition, consisting of 10 international experts, received a total of 28 project ideas, including 12 for the fashion design category alone. “For a first edition, this is a very good result, with a very nice variety of ideas and profiles”, says Marc Lis, manager of the Luxembourg Creative Industries Cluster.
Winners announced on 29 April
The jury finally selected 10 of these projects which are invited to participate in the 12-week coaching programme which will start on 11 January. During these three months, the project leaders will meet with a steering committee made up of members of the jury and the partners of the challenge on 3 separate occasions. “This will allow each of the applicants to receive feedback on the progress of their project. All of them will be assigned a head coach* who will accompany them throughout the process,” says Marc Lis.
Applicants will then have until 31 March 2021 to submit their final project idea. On 29 April 2021, the winners will be announced during an awards ceremony.
The selected projects are:
Fashion design:
- Care Wear from Edutec
- Nana & Rose from Anna Zahedi
- SCOBY Protective Face Mask from Guoda Treciokaite
Mobility:
- The world’s first circular sneakers from OUR CHOICE circular fashion
- On-Demand Water-less Car Wash (Dial a Car Wash) from Dial a Car Wash Luxembourg
- Car-roaming mobility service from Dotted Cars
Product design:
- Locally sourced coffee fertiliser from Capriole
- MiniCaps from Adham Alsayyad
- YourGreenKit from YourGreenKit
Interior design:
- CEGO from Julie Conrad Design Studio
No submitted application for the “Design as a Service” category made is through to the next stage.
* The four head coaches are - Ina Budde (Co-founder and CEO of circular.fashion in Berlin) - Jan Walter Parr (Chief Creative Officer at Eggs Design in Oslo) - Jan Glas (CEO of Yellow Ball in Luxembourg) - Samuel Majerus (Coordinator of the division 'Energy and Circular Economy' at L.S.C. Engineering Group in Luxembourg).