Design for Circular Economy in Indonesia

News - 15 October 2020 - Communication

IDE’s Design for Sustainability (DfS) section was recently approached to contribute to a Road to the 4th Indonesia Circular Economy Forum - a webinar with ministers, industry representatives and NGOs.

Indonesia, with over 270 million consumers, is one of the larger economies in the Global South. The Indonesian government has the ambition of becoming a frontrunner when it comes to the global shift towards the circular economy. For example, it’s aim is to reduce plastic marine debris by 70% by 2025. 

How do you go about meeting such an ambitious target? A design perspective can play a big role. IDE’s Associate Professor Jan Carel Diehl introduced some 800 participants to the Design for the Circular Economy approach, bringing in an IDE case study on the reduction of plastic waste caused by single use packaging in Indonesian laundries.

The IDE presentation was appreciated for its combination of system thinking and human-centered approach and led to an interesting discussion which allowed JC to link back to other IDE Design for Circular Economy research, including Flora Poppelaar’s recent PhD thesis on the 'divestment' of mobile phones. This story offered a welcome perspective on the over 300 million mobile phones in use in Indonesia.

IDE’s Design for Sustainability (DfS) section, in collaboration with the TU Delft | Global Initiative, are currently exploring how the TU Delft further can contribute to the development of a circular economy in the Global South.