Announcing a new partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Today the RSA is delighted to announce a new partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, following a long-standing relationship dating back to 2011.

The partnership will aim to significantly spread the idea and practice of circular design across both its networks, create an empowered community, and ultimately drive global change. 

The partnership, which focuses on advancing the circular design agenda, will see the both organisations co-create tools, resources, events and projects to inspire, educate and engage communities around the topic of circular design, increase understanding and encourage day to day practice. 

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a world leader in the circular economy. They develop and promote the idea of a circular economy and work with, and inspire, business, academia, policymakers, and institutions to mobilise systems solutions at scale, globally.

The RSA has successfully delivered on several design projects with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in particular a recent two-year partnership with the Foundation’s Make Fashion Circular initiative, which saw £1 million awarded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery. The partnership focused its efforts on building tools and directly engaging with design institutions, the next generation of design talent, and innovators to inspire them to reimagine products, business models, and systems for a circular economy

Through this partnership, we are looking forward to increasing the ambition level among our networks and communities and encouraging a movement towards embedding circular design as the norm.

The journey so far

2011

• Dame Ellen speaks at the RSA as part of an event entitled 'Re-imagining Business: The transition to the circular economy'.

2017

• Rowan Conway, former Director of Design and Innovation at the RSA, speaks at the Foundation’s annual Summit

• Simon Widmer, Creative Lead at the Foundation, speaks at the Student Design Awards briefing on circular design tools and methodologies that students can use

• The Circular Design Case is launched in collaboration with the Foundation and IDEO’s Circular Design Guide - an immersive learning experience and design challenge where applicants can think in systems as well as reflect upon interventions to make a system more circular. The RSA’s Josie Warden was on the judging panel and the winner was announced  during the Foundation’s Disruptive Innovation Festival. 

2018

• The Foundation takes part in the RSA’s Student Design Awards with Philips, creating a brief called ‘The Circular Emergency’. The brief asked students to design a product or system that uses circular design principles to make emergency medical care more effective. 

• The RSA’s Chief Executive Matthew Taylor speaks at the Foundation’s annual Summit.

• The RSA’s Josie Warden speaks at the Foundation’s Disruptive Innovation Festival on ‘Abundant Materials and Universal Manufacturing.’ Meanwhile, the RSA’s Rebecca Ford joins the Foundation for a session on ‘The Circular Emergency’ design brief for the Student Design Awards.  

2019

• The Make Fashion Circular initiative is awarded £1 million by the players of People’s Postcode Lottery to support circular fashion and design projects run in partnership with the Foundation and the RSA. The aim of the partnership is to engage the student community through design challenges, events, workshops, and communications. 
• Our Make Fashion Circular collaboration with the Foundation is born. 
• The Make Fashion Circular initiative contributes two circular design briefs at the RSA’s Student Design Awards. 1) A Make Fashion Circular brief, where students were tasked with addressing the waste and pollution problems that the fashion industry created and 2) a Moving Pictures brief, where students had to create an animation to accompany the audio clip 'Fashioning a Circular Future' - narrated by model Lily Cole.

• The RSA and the Foundation’s Make Fashion Circular initiative collaborate on 3 design workshops to explore a circular economy for fashion for those interested in participating in the Student Design Awards. 

• The RSA’s Josie Warden speaks at the Foundation’s Disruptive Innovation Festival on ‘The Future of Fashion: A Narrative for the Industry’ 

2020

• RSA creates the Regenerative Future’s Programme - with the ambition of showing how a regenerative future could look, act and feel and incorporating RSA’s circular economy ambitions.

• The Rethink Fashion Learning Journey is launched, a collaboration between the RSA and the Foundation to bring together a group of 12 inspiring creatives to explore the transition to a circular future for fashion. 

• RSA Director of Design and Innovation, Joanna Choukeir, joins the Foundation’s Circular Design Leaders network

2021

• The RSA and the Foundation collaborate on Partnership for Change, a community networking experience. The series of virtual events will celebrate our formal partnership and convene our global communities around the topics of circular design. 

Find out more and register to attend.