This case study explores how INDEED and Covestro collaborated to demonstrate how sustainability principles can be applied to create a practical solution. We achieved this by exploring opportunities in material interactions, product design, and circular systems.

Our joint efforts illustrate how companies can move beyond the hypothetical vision of sustainability to apply it to day-to-day businesses.

Covestro’s Circular Economy Initiative

Covestro is committed to promoting sustainability by implementing circular economy principles into its development and innovation processes. Partnering with diverse stakeholders, the company is developing sustainable materials and circular design concepts while promoting these practices across industries.

In collaboration with INDEED, Covestro aimed to further advance its circular design capabilities and application of circular materials. This partnership focused on developing tangible solutions that incorporate sustainability principles and circular strategies. Together, we worked on transforming ambitious sustainability goals into concrete, achievable outcomes.

The design phase determines a large part of a product’s environmental impact: from the choice of materials to repairability, from a long and useful product life to recyclability.

Christopher Stillings, Head of Color and Design at Covestro’s Engineering Plastics Business Unit

Our Approach

This case study outlines three key steps we took to demonstrate a practical approach to circularity in material selection and product design.

Step 1. Improving material selection process: integrated circular product design principles for showcasing and interacting with Covestro’s materials.

Step 2. Exploring innovative product designs: developed an example to showcase the application of recycled materials and circular design principles.

Step 3. Mapping circular systems: developed a visualization of the recycled material and bio-based material lifecycle

Step 1.
The Circular Experience Design

We created a first-hand experience with the Imagio® Configurator, which is a digital material sampling tool developed by Covestro for customers to experience the selection and simulation of Covestro’s growing bio-based, recycled, and high-performance materials. To visualize the materials in the context of products, the Configurator bridged the physical and the digital by combining an integrated rack of physical material CMF (color, material, finish) samples and digital renderings of the material’s application in industry-specific products. 

“We incorporate reuse, repairable, lightweight, and other circular design strategies into the Configurator design.”

Alex Dumler, Senior Expert

More importantly, we designed the sample rack to be modular and interchangeable to accommodate Covestro’s extensive material library which is continuously developing. The modular design allows the display to adapt to Covestro’s ever-expanding library of materials, future-proofing the Imagio® Configurator experience and extending its life. Embedding circularity to every detail, all parts of the Configurator are designed to be assembled and disassembled with fasteners. The absence of adhesive not only allows the Configurator to be disassembled for efficient transport in the event of a trade show but also optimizes the repairability of the device.

Step 2.
The Circular Material Application

Next, we put circular design principles into practice by creating a table lamp to demonstrate the potential of technology-enabled circular design. In collaboration with Covestro and Polymaker, a 3D printing filament manufacturer, we designed a table lamp produced using post-consumer recycled polycarbonates (rPC) from the recycling of 5-gallon water bottles and 3D printing. Considering the unique blue-tint, translucent visual characteristic of Covestro recycled PC and the freedom provided by 3D printing, we incorporate Voronoi parametric design to highlight the visual depth of the recycled material under light. The table lamp was also given a warm, rounded outer shell as a home product, balancing the mathematical, cold Voronoi structure.

Besides using recycled materials, the lamp follows a mono-material, easily disassembled circular design strategy, ensuring the reparability and recyclability of all components. Together with Polymaker, we also fine-tuned the design of the table lamp to reduce printing time, reducing the production emission footprint.

Through this innovative design, which excels at both conventional and sustainable design criteria, we hope to inspire the industry to integrate sustainable material selection and a circular design strategy into everyday products.

Step 3.
The Circular Material Journey

Finally, together with Covestro, we illustrate the journey of bio-based, mechanically recycled, and chemically recycled materials and their life cycle journey. This system map helped customers understand these innovative materials’ origins and processes. In addition, it explains concepts such as mass balance and bio-circular feedstock in the context of materials, providing vivid, digestible answers for common concerns about bio-based and recycled materials.

From Vision to Reality

Circularity can become a reality when we join forces with like-minded partners such as Covestro, leveraging circular strategy and circular design to address painpoints in everyday business activities and user experiences. By combining material interactions, innovative product design, and circular system mapping, we have delivered tangible circularity improvement across various aspects of Covestro’s ecosystem.

Creating Material Selection Process
Exploring Innovative Product Designs
Mapping Circular Systems

More success stories