RCA Joins Dame Ellen MacArthur's Circular Economy Programme as Education Partner

The partnership, led by SustainRCA, the College’s sustainability research hub, will enable the College to be at the forefront of research, innovation and knowledge exchange in the circular economy. As such, the College will join a consortium of organisations including Unilever, Vodafone, WRAP, Kingfisher, Ikea and Arup working together through the Ellen Macarthur Foundation to systemically transform wasteful linear production-consumption business models into ones based on remaking, reuse, repair, reselling and recycling.

Clare Brass, head of SustainRCA, and senior tutor on Innovation Design Engineering, a joint programme with Imperial College London, has been working with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation over the last two years on its Schmidt-Macarthur fellowship, and has mentored RCA Innovation Design Engineering students including Tim Sadler (MA Innovation Design Engineering, 2014) to produce circular economy prototypes.

As a partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Schmidt-MacArthur Fellowship, the RCA can now put forward up to 10 students, from across the College, for the 2015 programme. Supported by SustainRCA, selected students will work on a dedicated circular economy project, attend a week-long summer school, participate in the fellowship’s online knowledge-building and support programme, and have the chance to meet their peers from universities around the world.  Other partner universities on the programme include Imperial College London, Yale, Stanford and MIT.

‘The international postgraduate fellowship aims to foster design, creativity and innovation around the circular economy, and takes a multi-disciplinary approach with input across design, engineering and business. This is a unique and very prestigious opportunity, and an excellent connection to the most expert research community of the circular economy in the world. I am very excited about the possibility of opening up this opportunity to a wider group of selected students from across College, and to have increased access to this valuable network,’ said Brass.

IDE graduate Tim Sadler’s Circular Economy Innovation project, Vibe, a prototype computer keyboard that radically simplifies material and component use, making critical raw materials easier to recover, was shown at last month’s SustainRCA Show & Awards 2014, and was chosen for discussion as part of the London Design Festival’s Global Design Forum’s sustainability symposium with SustainRCA.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation was set up by Dame Ellen MacArthur, after circumnavigating the world solo. Dame MacArthur cites the need for meticulous resource management on her journey as key to realising the enormity of global sustainability and resource issues, and was the catalyst in her setting up the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Since September 2010, the Foundation has worked with UK schools to rethink waste as a resource and the European Commission on the launch of the European Resource Efficiency Platform, collaborating with EU Commissioner Janez Potočnik.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation's 2012 report 'Towards the Circular Economy' found that moving to a circular economy model could be worth up to £390 billion for Europe alone. According to the Foundation, showcasing companies leading the way is key in demonstrating what is possible within any new framework. 

Advisers to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation include Walter R Stahl, Michael Braungart, William McDonough, Janine Benyus, Sir Ken Robinson, Professor Tim Jackson and Professor Peter Guthrie.