Open Source Circular Economy — Reporting from London OSCEDays 2016

What is the Circular Economy?

A circular economy is one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times, distinguishing between technical and biological cycles. — Ellen Macarthur Foundation A circular economy is an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life. — WRAP UK

Circular Economy characteristics

1. Designing out waste.

2. Building resilience through diversity: Modularity, versatility and adaptivity.

3. Working towards clean renewable energy.

4. Thinking in systems and cascades.

What is Open Source?

Open source is a method for developing software, hardware and design. It embraces transparency, collaboration and participation.

What is Open Source Circular Economy?

OSCE combines open source principles with the circular economy.

At OSCE, we believe that a sustainable, waste free, circular economy needs transparency, open access to information and open source solutions.

OSCEDays 2016 London

OSCEDays is a global event with more than 70 cities taking part. It’s the 2nd year running and I’ve been involved since its early days in London. This year we have seen a continued effort by global and local organisers Erica Purvis and Sharon Prendeville to build on the momentum from last year.

Here are some of the activities we participated in:

We attended the Design For Manufacturing summit and Grit Hartung presented her research on how makerspaces play a part in the OSCE ecosystem. The discussion continued as we officially started the London OSCEdays workshop in the MachinesRoom, an East London makerspace. Grit explains how we need a new cultural narrative as we design in OSCE.

Using Open Energy Monitor as an example, we looked at how hardware projects can embrace OSCE principles and perform a Life Cycle Analysis of the device to find out its embodied energy. Lead by Trystan Lea, this is a continuation of the 2015 project. The focus was on how we can develop checklists, tools and guidance for other hardware startups to incorporate open and circular thinking right from the beginning.

Under the guidance of expert facilitator, Eddie Capstick of Make Sense (a global community of social entrepreneurs), we discussed how OSCE can be better communicated. It became obvious that we needed more clarity on what open source circular economy means and why we are doing this. And so, the discussion evolved into an exploration of the examples of good applications of OSCE.

As the OSCEdays is a global movement and reporting is fundamental to how we share our global knowledge, there are numerous hangouts going on throughout the weekend. We connected with Franz Nahrada who’s a founder of the Austrian Transition Towns movement and Matthieu Dupont de Dinechin from FabLab Chantier Libre in Roanne, France. Here was our conversation.

Local reporters connecting on Google Hangout to share knowledge to mobilise a global movement!

As part of the Reading Green Festival, we explored the local circular economy activities in the neighbouring town of Reading. Of note is the Reading Bicycle Kitchen which is a facility for bicycle repair where locals pay for the time to fix their bikes. Its a thriving community run by volunteers.

Bibi Gratzer presented the Blue Economy by Prof Gunter Pauli which is a holistic entrepreneurial framework to achieve zero waste. As a marine ecologist with first hand experience in dealing with the issue of ocean plastic waste, Bibi gave an inspiring talk looking at how nature is naturally collaborative.

We also learned about the concept of local currencies with a workshop by Les Moore, an expert in permaculture and sociocracy. Les explains the concepts of mutual credit and how local currencies keep the flow of value locally.

We worked on a draft open letter to the new mayor of London on what we want to see in a circular city in London, starting with a visioning exercise of London in 2036. This was a workshop ran by Gianpy Pucciariello and Rachel Stanley at the Camden Collective. This is still work in progress but with just 15 people in the room and in the time of 5 hours we have managed to come up with a plan for a circular London.

On the final day of OSCEdays, a few of us attended the #TechForGood meetup organised by Bethnal Green Ventures. There were presentations from Winnow Solutions (measuring kitchen food waste), Restart Project (repair parties fixing electronics) and Lucy Chamberlain of RSA. Miriam Kehl also talked about the Green Alley Award which is an award promoting circular economy innovation. We also met CupClub, an early stage startup doing cups-as-a-service, making reusable smart cups to replace single use disposable cups.

Erica Purvis opening the workshops with an ice breaker session at the MachinesRoom.

Trystan Lea of Open Energy Monitor on how to share circular design considerations for startups + wine & pizza

Me at the Reading Green Festival … plugging in IYWTo …shh!!!

Gianpietro Pucciariello on the story of open source.

Marine ecologist, Bibi Gratzer on the Blue Economy

Adrien Fabre, Luisa Ferri and Eddie Capstick on “Sharing and Participating” in a Circular London

Its been another amazing event for OSCEdays London and thank you to everyone who have organised, contributed and connected. We look forward to more learning, participation and collaboration with people with a similar interest who are keen to promote this great cause.

At IYWTo, we are curating the most impactful projects to help people discover ways to act on climate change. Check out more circular economy projects suggested to the IYWTo community here.

Join me as I learn more about the innovations in cleanweb — smart green environmental projects.