Revolutionize Sustainable Product Design with AI
Our Sustainable Design AI Lab is a 3-week engagement that leverages custom Artificial Intelligence tooIs to map out the sustainable and regenerative possibilities for your product or product range.
Sustainable design is no longer an option, but the norm - not in the least because of laws such as the Ecodesign (ESPR) regulation. Led by humans and supported by AI, the Lab will result in a comprehensive menu of circular and low waste strategies, innovative materials, energy reductions and regenerative growth opportunities specifically suited for your product or product range. Our method creates options for reducing your carbon footprint, resource use and other environmental concerns, while aiming for positive impact and valuable benefits for your customers and your company.
Learn how repair, upgrades and maintenance can become part of your business model
Discover the vast possibilities of next-gen biobased materials
Integrate services in your offer, and decouple revenue from resource use
Find out how to promote your products in a future-proof context
What a Sustainable Design AI Lab will bring you
Through this Lab, your team will receive a full overview of sustainable design options and business strategies for your product or product range, presented as actionable solutions with engaging visualizations. This can include circular solutions, zero-waste rethinks, sustainable material alternatives and energy-saving options. We extend the principles of sustainability to include regenerative opportunities, which not only minimize negative impacts but also actively contribute to positive environmental changes. Typically, a Lab generates hundreds of textual concepts and about ten detailed, visually inspiring directions ready for integration into product development and future roadmaps.
The AI Lab offers strategic co-benefits, uniting your multi-disciplinary team around shared sustainability goals and cultivating a common language. The Lab is designed to upskill your company in sustainable and regenerative design principles, building your ability to integrate these concepts into future projects. It’s also a great introduction to AI-supported innovation, providing experience with AI tools that will drive efficiency and creativity in product development.
For Beiersdorf, we created custom AI bots to generate hundreds of options for sustainable business models, innovative materials and designs, and climate- and nature positive formula concepts.
Our project Fashion Regeneration for ASN Bank resulted in one of the first sustainability publications in the world to make use of AI visualisations. It lays out the possibilities of a fashion industry actively working to restore climate and nature through such diverse concepts as biochar, remanufacturing and agrivoltaics. This body of work is now used to guide investment strategy and policy at ASN Bank.
AI visualisation is the perfect companion to AI-supported sustainability ideation, providing inspiring, realistic images in a fraction of the time compared to conventional visualisation methods.
What happens in a Sustainable Design AI Lab?
WEEK 1 PREPARATION
Introduction
Data gathering
Analysis
WEEK 2 IDEATION
Bot creation
Ideation rounds
Selection and Presentation
WEEK 3 DELIVERY
Iterations
Visualisation
Co-creation
Our three-week Design Lab leverages AI to imagine sustainable versions of your products. Here’s what you can expect at each stage:
1. Preparation
Introduction: We start by getting to know your team and your company.
Data gathering: Relevant company data (including Life Cycle Assessment, if available) is integrated to set the groundwork.
Analysis: We conduct an in-depth analysis and familiarization with your product or product range.
2. Ideation
Bot creation: We create and tweak bots to assist in the ideation process.
Ideation rounds: We engage in rounds of ideation to explore potential innovations.
Selection and presentation: With your team, we choose the most promising ideas and prepare them for iteration and co-creation.
3. Delivery
Iterations: Refine the selected ideas through iterative development.
Visualization: Illustrate the potential of concepts with inspiring visualisations.
Co-creation: Collaborative evaluation and ranking of the refined concepts, and development of a roadmap for implementation.
Our Sustainable Design AI Lab is flexible and designed for a variety of product types and complexities. If your project needs a comprehensive, company-wide regenerative scan or concerns particularly complex products or systems, we’re happy to create a tailored solution for you. Additionally, we offer optional modules such as Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), virtual user testing, and detailed design and roadmapping.
Our Labs are conducted primarily online, enabling us to collaborate with clients globally.
Why our Sustainable AI Lab Delivers
At Kode21, we bring a wealth of experience from working with circular, sustainable, and regenerative design principles in our projects for customers like Philips, Project Drawdown and General Mills. SUPZero adds zero waste expertise for organisations such as Albert Heijn and the Dutch Ministry for Infrastructure and Watermanagement. We now leverage this experience in custom AI tools that are specifically designed to apply these principles effectively.
Through our client work for organisations such as ASN Bank and Beiersdorf, as well as AI implementation masterclasses, we are highly aware of both the possibilities and limitations of AI. It accelerates and enriches our work, but humans are in the loop of every step to ensure practical and high-quality solutions.
What clients say about Kode21’s methods and results
“Kode21 gave us gorgeous tools and inspiration materials that really helped our team move forward to our sustainable objectives. Not just at product level, but also by clarifying our strategic goals.”
Robert Stadman, Innovation Manager, Joolz
“We were thrilled by the scope and amount of ideas resulting from Kode21’s process. It gave our entire team fresh energy and the common goal of putting sustainability central in everything we do.”
Margrit Reuss, Senior Objects Conservator, Tropenmuseum
“Kode21 has developed a unique method that has helped organisations like General Mills go beyond emissions reductions to discover new, climate positive business opportunities and find value, not just costs, in sustainability.”
Jamie Alexander, Director, Drawdown Labs
“Kode21… really helps find climate positive business opportunities that go far beyond the usual sustainability ideas."
Helle Ullerup, Senior Service Designer, Philips Circular Design Group
Why is a Sustainable Design AI Lab right for you?
Speed and Sustainability: Early on, we realized that AI and sustainable strategy are a perfect match, and we are now proving this by doing projects that used to take months, in weeks. Our Lab streamlines the process of integrating circular and regenerative principles with even richer results.
Clear, Actionable Results for Regenerative Impact: Our AI Labs provide you with a menu of clear, actionable and inspiring insights that directly apply to making your products more sustainable and even regenerative. We aim for strategies that are not only feasible but designed to bring about real environmental change.
Customer and Company Benefits: By focusing on sustainable and regenerative opportunities, our approach not only benefits the planet but also delivers added value to your customers. We want to show you how improved product sustainability can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, aligning consumer values with environmental responsibility.
Ready to upgrade your products with innovative and practical sustainability solutions?
Gain high quality insights and visually inspiring directions for more sustainable products through our 3-week Sustainable AI Design Lab. Our labs are designed to adapt to any challenge. Schedule a free consultation today to discover how we can transform your product's impact on climate, nature, and resources.
Sustainable Design AI Lab is a collaboration between Kode21 and SUPzero, a leading expert in sustainable rethinks for FMCG.
Hilde Beugelink
Zero Waste Specialist & Strategic Facilitator
Michiel Cornelissen
Sustainable Designer & AI Specialist