Sustainable Innovation: How Design Businesses Can Innovate For Sustainability in Future

What is Sustainable Innovation?

Sustainable innovation involves protecting the environment in every aspect of your business. You should be aware of the impact your business has on the environment. This includes the climate and the planet in general. The aim is to be sustainable without affecting your bottom line.

The United Nations put together 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals call on global countries to better the lives of their citizens on a social, economic and sustainable level. 

They spell out the following:

• Think about the triple bottom line– people, planet and profit. Think about being sustainable and how you can do this to profit your business.

You should ensure your company thinks about sustainability whenever it manufactures products. And you must ensure you look after the people working for your business.

• Methods you use to create your products and services to make a profit without harming the planet. 

Here's another example: British company Bio-bean is involved in biofuel production. They manufacture this sustainable product out of coffee scraps. They currently use this to fuel London’s double-decker buses.

The company is also involved in green fuel item production, items created out of coffee pod scraps; they use these to replace carbon-heavy logs and coal bricks. We love how innovative this British company is.

• Not everyone knows how to be innovative. But we can change how we do business to ensure we are more sustainable.

Think hard about how to adopt sustainable measures in every aspect of your small business. Consider everything from human resources and marketing to design and production.

Adding Sustainable Innovations to Your Business

A business open to sustainable innovation processes isn’t a quick fix. They involve a long-term goal that takes time and commitment. And you don’t need a university degree to achieve this.

1. Be more Sustainable in Manufacture: This innovation doesn’t necessarily mean changing how you manufacture your existing products. It’s about manufacturing your products in a more efficient way that also uses less power and water. At maake, we print on fabric in the most sustainable way possible, using less energy and little soaking. Our printing processes use 95% less power than traditional textile printing, and we use only 100% sustainable power sources. That’s sustainable innovation for us.

We also print on demand, which means we only print what you order. The processes we use to print on cotton and linen use no liquid and produce less than a thimbleful of ink surplus per 100m printed. In addition, all the inks we use meet the Oeko-Tex 100 Class 1 and GOTS 5.0 requirements and are also EN71-13 certified safe for children. (You can read all about these fabric certifications in our comprehensive Textile Certification Guide.)

Additionally, we focus on our maakeLess Fabric Waste Initiative, which involves recycling any cut-off fabrics, or printed textiles returned to us. All leftover material is given to charities, universities and schools, and some are recycled and offered free to customers in upcycling bags of various sizes. If you collect your bag from our North London mill, it’s completely free. If we deliver to you, the delivery costs are for your account.

1. Go Green: Sometimes all you need to do to become more sustainable is find

more sustainable ways to do what you already do. Learn about the production processes we use for our product sustainability in the section above. Otherwise, try using your initiative and start creating more sustainable products.

1. Teamwork: Companies team up with other businesses to create a more

positive impact on the environment. Say you work with another business, as we work with different fabric manufacturers – together you can make more of a sustainable impact.

Hopefully, we have inspired you to make your business more sustainable. The goal is to reduce carbon emissions; we do this by suggesting that customers collect their orders from our North London mill instead of having us deliver them. And try to minimize fabric and ink surplus in every possible way.

Using the Circular Economy

We have learned that in the past, many a business had a linear approach. This approach involves manufacturing items to make a profit. Usually, factories make products with a certain life cycle (take Apple products for example, which change every year). Once the product is past its sell-by date, it is usually discarded and replaced with a newer model. 

This isn’t a very sustainable way of doing business. 

But there is another way. The cyclical business method is more sustainable: it eliminates scraps; it doesn’t create it. It’s not just recycling products – it’s a whole new way of designing goods so that we can reuse the components.

To do business sustainably, we need a circular economy. This business method involves not wasting liquid and power in manufacturing items and not creating pollution. In this economy, factories reduce surplus items and pollution by designing items more effectively and sustainably. 

Sustainable Innovation in a Design Environment

As most of maake's customers’ businesses are involved in design, we want to connect and discuss sustainable innovations in this industry. LinkedIn Learning offers a course that covers this in detail, featuring all the tools, resources, and methods for sustainable design you need to innovate. 

It covers the following:

• Sustainable Design: Methods of designing goods with sustainability in mind, including using recycled materials, natural resources and less power to produce them.
• Eco Design: Designing goods that are more sustainable themselves.
• Sustainable Product Design: Using the Triple Bottom Line when designing products. This involves contributing to global well-being and environmental health in 3 important categories – people, planet, and prosperity.
• Designing for Sustainability: Involves the company being sustainable; not just its products.

Sustainable Innovation in the Fashion Industry

We’ve covered Fast Fashion before, but now it’s time to discuss world fashion sustainability in more detail.

• Fast fashion involves non-sustainable innovation and it’s here to stay. More and more manufacturers are manufacturing quick, cheap clothing the moment Social Media shows a new trend. Then, when another fashion trend emerges, we discard the previous fast fashion garments in landfills.
• Remember: fast fashion clothing is not biodegradable. Manufacturers usually make this garment from synthetic fabrics, which does not involve sustainable production, as the items don’t need to last long. Regular manufacturing of synthetic materials uses plenty of power and liquid, which impacts the environment. And manufacturing these garments also involves using microplastics and other scrap materials.
• The only way to combat this is to manufacture ‘slow fashion’. Check out our Guide to Slow Fashion, which explains all about slow fashion garments, and quality clothing made from recycled or natural fabrics. These garments have classic designs that withstand the test of time. Not only are they of exceptional quality, but they are also classic, timeless designs that factories manufacture sustainably.
• Part of the problem with ‘fast fashion’ is the mistreatment of garment workers. This includes the awful conditions in which they work. Every business must provide sustainable working conditions and reasonable working hours. In the fast fashion industry, garment workers receive low pay, work impossible hours, and often work in unhealthy conditions.
• Here is some good news: international countries are making laws about sustainable manufacturing. This includes ensuring fashion businesses save power and liquids when they produce clothing.

Sustainable Innovation in Your Business

Follow our lead and become evergreen in every possible way using sustainable innovations like the ones listed below. Here is a list of 8 ways we engage in sustainable innovation at maake:

1. Embrace being sustainable: At our North London factory, every product is designed, printed, manufactured, and delivered in a sustainable manner.
2. Make it British: We only use fabrics and designs that are locally sourced.
3. Give the staff the best: Our employees enjoy good working conditions and are paid salaries that meet the Living Wage. They undergo extensive training to learn about the company’s sustainable textile printing and fabric production.
4. Create a sustainable culture: Workers are creative and focused; they believe in our philosophy of pioneering sustainability.
5. MakeLess Waste: At maake, we have a Zero Waste policy. Also, our printing machines have cut-off switches lessen the amount of power we use.
6. Recycle: As mentioned above, we give offcuts and leftover fabrics a second life. Our CEO’s Zero to Landfill initiative involves donating any leftover fabric to worthy institutions. Or customers can pick up upcycling bags of different sizes completely free of charge, or pay only for delivery.

At the factory, we fill these bags with white, ivory and natural-coloured fabric offcuts, including organic cottons, linens and velvets and recycled polyester materials.

1. Manufacture items with sustainability in mind: In our business, we sustainably print on fabrics with sustainable inks that are also safe for children.

Although fabric printing can use plenty of liquid and energy, and create scraps, our printing methods don’t. On the contrary: our methods minimise our impact on the environment.

2. Create items on demand: We produce and print exactly what our customers order, no more.

How the UK is Sustainable

These sustainable innovation programmes and innovation can help your business be more sustainable.

The SBRI & the SIF Assist Small Businesses in Sustainability

To assist companies in Britain become more sustainable, the country’s Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) was formed. It assists government departments by communicating with British companies and helping them solve challenges such as environmental issues.

This pre-commercial procurement programme uses studies to assist a business be more innovative and help them produce new items. It also generates new business opportunities for small businesses.

To help these companies financially, the SBRI formed the Sustainable Innovation Fund (SIF) to encourage and support inventive business insights that positively impact climate change and environmental sustainability.

The funding programme focuses on “a prosperous, resilient, and equitable future based on net zero technologies”. Its aim is to support sustainable innovation in business to better public services. The SIF is assisting the future of gas and electricity networks with funds from Ofgem by investing around £450 million in power network sustainable innovation by 2026.

Sustainable Fashion & Textile Industry Innovation Actions 

In the past year, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has invested £6 million to help the fashion and textile industry consider sustainability and responsible practices and lessen their environmental impact. The reason for this action? “Fashion uses more power than both aviation and shipping combined”.

According to Professor Peter Liss, Interim Executive Chair of the Natural Environment Research Council, which is part of UKRI, “The fashion industry makes a significant contribution to Britain. This also impacts the environment, including using liquid resources and causing emissions of greenhouse gases. We need to understand the true impact better.”

These innovation initiatives bring together researchers and industry experts in science and fashion to embed being sustainable in the fashion and textile industry.

UKRI has funded 3 different but complimentary research projects that work with industry experts, business management and other stakeholders to “build information, support the industry sector and adopt sustainable business models”:

1. The Back to Baselines In Circular Fashion & Textiles Network:

Led by the University of Leeds, it aims to analyse the current status of sustainability practices in the industry.

1. The Future Fibres Network:

“To embed environmental sciences at the heart of fashion, wider apparel and textile sectors, and establish systematic, circular and sustainable principles”.

1. The IMPACT+ Network:

In conjunction with Northumbria University, this project aims to assemble a cross-disciplinary team “to improve the collation, analysis, and assessment of data to advance the reliability and authenticity of environmental impact measures”.

Please note:

At maake, we care about our customers. We know your company is trying to make ends meet. We have experienced what you are going through, which is why we understand. And that’s why we offer advice on how to better your enterprise using blogs like this one. Visit our website and see how we can help your company further, with our product and service offerings. Here’s to your next chapter!