The Ellen MacArthur Foundation aims to make circular design "the new normal' by persuading 20 million designers to help transform the global economy from a linear to a circular model.
The non-profit organisation is launching an initiative called the Circular Design Programme, with the intention or persuading millions of designers to stop creating products that end up as landfill.
The foundation has calculated that by 2025 there will be 160 million designers and creative decision makers in the world, representing five per cent of the global workforce of 3.4 billion people.
"They will design everything around us by 2025, from the clothes we wear to the buildings we live and work in, to systems that deliver food and mobility," the foundation says in the executive summary of its Circular Design Programme, which has been shared exclusively with Dezeen. "Our ambition is to engage these five per cent and make designing for the circular economy the new normal by 2025."
Designing for circular economy "one of the biggest creative challenges of our time"
The programme, which is still being developed, aims to persuade 20 million of these designers to adopt circular design in their work, and to make a further 60 million designers aware of circularity.
These numbers are based on tipping-point theory whereby, in order to drive systemic change, half of a given target audience needs to be open to new ideas while at least 10-20 per cent of the audience need...