Sustainable Innovation: How Design Businesses Can Innovate For Sustainability in 2026

Business innovation isn’t always sustainable innovation. Sometimes being inventive in your business models can actively harm the environment.

Take aluminium coffee pods as an example (the ones we see on Social Media and in TV ads featuring George Clooney). Initially, those coffee pods were extremely harmful to the planet.

However, coffee pod production boomed.

After environmental supporters showed their disgust, the companies began an initiative to recycle the coffee pods, to prevent them from ending in landfills. These days, you can follow George Clooney’s example and still be sustainable! That’s an example of sustainable innovation!

What is Sustainable Innovation?

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

The United Nations compiled 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which call on global countries to improve the lives of their citizens on social, economic and sustainable levels. 

They spell out the following:

• How to consider the triple bottom line – people, planet and profit. Work out how you can be sustainable and a way to do this to make your business profitable. You should ensure your company takes sustainability into account whenever it manufactures products. You also must ensure you look after the people working for your business.

• Ways to manufacture your products and services to make a profit without harming the planet. Here's another coffee example: British company Bio-bean is involved in revolutionising our lifestyles by “combining the power of biology and natural supplements” to help people shape their fitness journeys “using cutting-edge research to harness the energy-boosting potential of coffee-derived caffeine.

• Not everyone knows how to be innovative. But we can change how we operate our businesses to ensure they become more sustainable. Consider adopting sustainable measures in every aspect of your small business. Monitor everything from human resources and marketing to design and production.

Adding Sustainable Innovations to Your Business

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

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 water. Our printing processes use 95% less power than traditional textile printing, and we use only 100% sustainable power sources. That’s how we tackle sustainable innovation.

Print on Demand

We only print what you order. The processes we use to print on cotton and linen require no liquid and produce less than a thimbleful of ink surplus per 100m printed. And 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.)

Make Less Waste

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 donated to charities, universities and schools, and some is 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 will be for your account.

Go Green  

Sometimes all you need to do to become more sustainable is to find more sustainable methods of doing what you already do. Discover more about the sustainability initiatives we use to create products, and try using your initiative to create more sustainable products.

Believe in Teamwork

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 a more 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. Also, try to minimise fabric and ink surplus in every possible way.

Use the Circular Economy 

We have learned that in the past, many a business had a linear approach, which involves manufacturing items for profit. Usually, factories manufacture products with a certain lifecycle (take Apple products for example, which are updated annually). Once the product has passed its sell-by date, it is usually discarded and replaced with a newer model. This isn’t a sustainable business model. 

But there is another way. The cyclical business method is more sustainable: 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 water 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 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 more sustainable goods.
• Sustainable Product Design: Using the Triple Bottom Line when designing products. This involves contributing to global well-being and environmental health in three important categories… people, planet, and prosperity.
• Designing for sustainability: Involves the company being sustainable in every way, not only with its products.

Sustainable Innovation in the Fashion Industry

We’ve covered Fast Fashion before, but now let’s discuss world fashion sustainability in detail.

• Fast fashion involves non-sustainable innovation, and it’s here to stay. More manufacturers are producing quick, inexpensive clothing every time Social Media displays a new trend. Then, once another fashion trend emerges, we discard the previous fast fashion garments in landfills.
• However, fast fashion clothing is not biodegradable. Manufacturers usually make this garment from synthetic fabrics, which is not sustainably produced, as the items don’t have to last a long time. Regular manufacturing of synthetic materials uses plenty of power and water which harms the environment. It also involves using microplastics and other scrap materials to create these garments.

• 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, quality clothing made from recycled or natural fabrics. These garments are classically designed and 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 their horrific working conditions. Every business must provide sustainable, safe and hygienic working conditions, plus reasonable working hours. In the fast fashion industry, garment workers receive low pay, work impossible hours, and often work in unhealthy conditions. These items are constantly in the news, including the recent discovery of the conditions of garment workers’ for design house Gucci.

• Here is some good news: international countries are making laws about sustainable manufacturing. This includes ensuring fashion businesses saving energy and water when producing 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 eight ways we engage in sustainable innovation at maake:

1. Embrace being sustainable: At our North London factory, every product is sustainably designed, printed, manufactured, and delivered.
2. Make it British: We only use locally sourced fabrics and designs.
3. Provide your staff with the best: Our employees enjoy good, safe, healthy 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 and our printing machines have cut-off switches that lessen the amount of power we use.
6. Recycle: As we mentioned earlier, we give offcuts and leftover fabrics a second life. Our CEO’s Zero to Landfill initiative involves donating any leftover fabric to worthy institutions. Customers can also collect upcycling bags of different sizes completely free of charge at our NW11 mill, or pay only for delivery. At the factory, we fill these bags with white, ivory and natural-coloured fabric offcuts, including organic cottons, linens, velvets and recycled polyester materials.
7. Manufacture items with sustainability in mind: In our business, we print on fabrics sustainably with inks that are not only environmentally friendly but also safe for children. Although fabric printing can use plenty of energy, and create scraps, our printing methods don’t; they minimise our impact on the environment.
8. Produce items on demand. We produce and print exactly what our customers order, no more.

How the UK is Sustainable 

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

Assisting Small Businesses to be Sustainable

There are approximately 5.7 million SMEs in the United Kingdom. In December this year, the UK Government announced new funding and additional support for these small businesses across the country “to help them invest in sustainability, to cut operating costs and boost their business”.

This is part of the Government’s Plan for Small Business, the “most substantial package of support for the UK’s SMEs in a generation”, which will help unleash their full potential, create jobs and grow the economy.

The £2 million funding via the ‘Made Smarter Adoption Programme’ is a major boost to assist SMEs cut costs, grow and become more sustainable.

This programme will assist small and medium-sized businesses reduce their costs and become more energy-efficient by investing in technology in various areas, including heating, insulation and solar power.

The initiative is, in part, a response to the Willow Review Report, which revealed that 67% of SMEs that have adopted sustainable practices, such as installing solar panels, reported reduced costs.

Responses to this initiative have been positive. According to Katie White, UK Minister for Climate, “The Willow Review recommendations will help the small businesses that power Britain unlock the financial benefits of sustainability, as we accelerate towards net zero.”

Other positive reactions to this new programme include schemes like the Zero Carbon Services Hospitality Trial, which is expected to deliver “over £3 million for businesses while also preventing 2,700 tonnes of carbon pollution over a year – the equivalent of around 1,600 return flights from London to New York”.

This particular trial provides 600 small UK hospitality businesses with free energy plus assessments to explain how they can reduce their emissions and costs.

Another major initiative is the “mass roll-out of smart meters to small businesses” across the UK, which will help “millions of consumers manage their energy use” so that they can improve energy efficiency and save costs.

Sustainable Fashion & Textile Industry Innovation Actions

The UKFT, the United Kingdom’s largest network for fashion and textiles, is committed to delivering sustainable growth for the entire UK fashion and textile supply chain.

It has created the UK Textiles Pact, also called the Wrap Textiles Footprint Calculator, a voluntary initiative that supports companies and organisations in the fashion and fabrics industries to be more sustainable. The innovative, exclusive WRAP Textiles Footprint Tool, which tracks the lifecycle of fabric products through various processes and techniques. It then provides information on the impacts of fabrics through their life cycles to calculate the scope 3 emissions resulting from these products. “The report is designed to support users of the tool and answer questions from those wishing to interpret the outputs.”

This tool aims towards specific targets, including:

-       50% reduction in the overall carbon footprint of new fabric products

-       30% reduction in the overall water footprint of new fabric products.

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 business using blogs like this one. Visit our website to discover how we can assist your company further with our product and service offerings. Here’s to your next chapter!