The goal of this project is to find a way to get people to consume less, by changing what they do to improve their subjective well-being. It was found that the main issue that needed tackling is the fact that, currently, people are addicted to consumption - they depend on consumption for their happiness. The best way to remedy this would be to teach them how to make themselves happy; this can be done by getting them to derive their happiness from Eudaimonia. Eudaimonia can be defined as happiness or contentment derived from your life and the things that you do having meaning, and from good relationships with people you care about. Design intervention testing was used to explore how people would best be taught how to make themselves happy. After some initial explorations of the subject matter, three more effective designs were developed to be tested more thoroughly. Fifteen people tested the designs; they were interviewed before and after using the design to see if any changes occurred. The interviews tried to establish if the designs had any influence on what people’s life goals were, on whether the actions they took were in line with eudaimonia, and on if they would buy items that they did not need for these eudaimonic actions. This testing process yielded three main design principles. In order to help people get better at making themselves happy, a design should: ● Help you reflect on which eudaimonic activities they already partake in ● Get you to connect these actions to the items necessary for them ● Urge you to avoid non-eudaimonic actions and items Aside from these three principles, some insights on how to best implement each of the principles were found as well. To illustrate how these principles and insights are best put to use, some design examples were developed. Firstly, a time capsule was designed which people can put items they are not sure they need into; during the month that the items are locked away in the capsule, it gets people to reflect upon whether they need the items. Afterwards, people are urged to give away any of the unneeded items. This helps people gain an understanding of what they do and do not need. Aside from this, redesigns to eBay, Bol.com and Climate Activist websites were developed to give some examples of how the findings could be used by other designers.

Political participation of a group representative of society is essential for the legitimacy of a democratic system. But adolescents are not heard sufficiently and receive too little attention in contemporary democracy. Their political participation is very low and not representative for their age group, as politically engaged adolescents often enjoy formal education, do not come from vulnerable groups and have positive role models at home or at school. In the participatory society, which has become the Dutch norm, participation has become vital. Differences in level of participation can result in inequalities for groups who do not sufficiently bring up their concerns. The corona crisis has exposed this is the case for mbo-students. Involving this group of underrepresented, under-involved and not-heard mbo-students is imperative to achieve the equality necessary for a legitimate democratic system. Increasing their participation will contribute to more social justice. Despite efforts by the government, the political participation of mbo-students does not appear to be increasing. The lack of participation of mbo-students is a complex problem with many causes. Mbo-students are incredibly diverse in age, ethnicity, interests, and so on, and ‘the’ mbo-student does not exists. There is a gap between politicians and mbo-students, and the current participation system does not fit students’ needs. Furthermore, they have difficulties formulating opinions autonomously and do not know how to translate these into action. The proposed design intervention is the concept Rake Praat. The process of Participatory Budgeting (where a municipality allocates a section of the annual budget to be spent by citizens) has been altered to more accurately facilitate the needs and wishes of mbo-students. Their experiences form the foundation for the process. With the use of integrated Creative Problem-Solving techniques, students and politicians define potential projects together. With four co-creation sessions, each with its own focus, mbo-students and politicians navigate together from problem to solution. A session plan can be designed by the municipality and schools with the use of the Activity Cards. These describe different types of (creative) activities, allowing the participants to go through the different stages of the creative process: diverging, reverging, and converging. The activities are shaped so that the creative facilitation does not require experts, allowing students and politicians to go through the process autonomously. The design makes creative problem-solving more accessible to non-designers, providing policymakers and politicians with the means to shape contacts with mbo-students. Simultaneously, the toolkit gives students the opportunity to express their views directly to people who can make a difference. This is necessary for both groups to understand each other better.

Refurbishment is a critical strategy in the circular economy (Bocken et al., 2016). Despite the environmental and financial benefits, refurbished products are not a popular consumer choice (Mugge et al., 2017). Refurbished products are seen as old, used and of low quality, and consumers worry that products are contaminated with traces of a prior user (Mugge et al., 2017). This lack of consumer acceptance is perceived as too risky for companies to make the financial investments needed for refurbishment. In theory, refurbishment can be implemented in any product category. But, not every product category is equally popular. Partly due to the lack of consumer interest, the refurbishment of personal care products remains unexplored (Mugge et al., 2017). Because of this, many products and components go to scrap before the end of their functional life. To exploit this potential, consumers need to see the value of refurbished personal care products. To this end, this project has aimed to explore ways for designers to enhance the consumer acceptance of refurbished products through product design. This raised the question of how hygiene perception influences the will to buy refurbished. Hygiene is related to the consumer’s fear of contamination. Consumer interviews suggest that hygiene is mainly perceived in relation to complexity. Features like buttons, small corners, and split lines negatively influence the refurbished product’s acceptance. This suggests that product complexity negatively affects the perceived ease of cleaning. Findings also show that the colour white and smooth surface finishing are favourable for a refurbished product due to their associations with hygiene and medical products. From this research, it can be stated that improving the hygiene perception will cause a slightly increased willingness to buy refurbished. The research findings led to the following conclusion on the influence of design aesthetics on the acceptance of the refurbished product: ‘Aesthetics influence the acceptance via associations but will not be the deciding aspect for solving the overarching societal problem that stands in the way of refurbished product acceptance; misconceptions about refurbishment’. That does not mean that aesthetics have no influence at all. Creating positive associations through aesthetics can increase the willingness to buy refurbished (Huang et al., 2020). This project concludes that, for the Lumea, especially associations with luxury, hygiene and durability positively influence the acceptance of the refurbished product. Based on this redesign process, it was concluded that design for refurbishment is not a quick fix or stand-alone design activity. It is a mindset best developed through experience. Every product and context is unique. There are no guidelines or rules to follow, which apply in every situation. The proposed skills for designers to incorporate the refurbishment design mindset are (1) consumer empathy, (2) product lifetime management and (3) ecosystem thinking. To help designers to develop these skills, a tool was created in the shape of a canvas. Each box on this canvas focuses on a different aspect of refurbishment, ranging from the different consumers in different lifetimes to ideation on aesthetics features and concerns.

Rubber is by the European Union stated a critical material (Critical Raw Materials, 2020). For our society the material is essential but can be depleted. The search for circular solutions for rubber is urgent. In 2020 27.4 million metric tons of rubber has been produced globally (Tiseo, 2021). Around 70% of all produced rubber is used to create tyres (About rubber, z.d.). creating one of the biggest single product waste streams in the world. Rubber granulate is a material made by recycling tyres. Stockz is a company which creates rubber sports flooring solutions for fitness gyms and sport clubs from these rubber granules. Delivering a safe space for athletes, reducing sound and protecting the base floor from the impact of falling weights. The life of the rubber material is extended but still after this 2nd life cycle the product ends like waste. In this project circular strategies are examined to prolong product and material life as long as possible. The 3 most promising circular strategies, Reusing, Remanufacturing and Recycling were chosen to evaluate on feasibility, viability and desirability. Based on tests to create 2nd cycle granules and rubber sports flooring solutions the feasibility is proven for the recycling strategy. Reusing flooring is also possible. Remanufacturing is based on interesting ideas and therefor is plausible but not proven feasible. Interviews with clients, end-users and production partners gave valuable information on their view on the strategies. An idea generation session to redesign for remanufacturing gave new ideas how to create a more circular product. Life Cycle Analysis were made for the current situation and the 3 strategies. Resulting in a decrease of CO2 with the use of the strategy reusing by 11%, remanufacturing by 15.5% and with recycling by 17%. Next to this circular business models were examined which led to 2 different retrieval services for indirect sales clients and a rent/hire business with direct sales clients. Cost calculations were made and discussed with clients and end-users. The viability of the reuse strategy is proven. The viability of the remanufacture strategy is because of the new idea not certain but plausible after some investments. The viability of the recycle strategy was not proven because of a higher price than the current product which was not desirable. A 2nd cycle recycled flooring solution could be viable for other clients or end-users than interviewed who are willing to pay more for a more sustainable product. From these results a strategic roadmap was made towards the vision of Stockz having a circular business. A MVP to start the retrieval service in 2023 is the first horizon going towards the second horizon in 2024 were pre-loved (used) products and 2nd cycle products are being sold.

Public organisations are shifting their focus towards the implementation of sustainability into their projects through sustainable public procurement, but recent studies indicated that the implementation is still lacking. Sustainable public procurement is only implemented in around 10% of the Dutch public procurement tenders (Yu et al. 2020). One of the reasons for the lack of implementation is the added complexity to the job of the procurement specialist. MVI platform helps these procurement specialists by guiding them through this complex task. During their work they found out that a lot of potential positive impact is lost at the start of a project. The most potential for impact is found in the civil construction sector, due to the size of its projects. Because of this potential, the graduation project is aimed at stimulating sustainable public procurement for civil construction projects. This graduation project focusses on the design of an intervention at the early stages of a project in order to start creating more positive social and environmental impact. This is done through the design of practices that support a pragmatic and collaborative approach. During these practices, a mix of vision, management and execution stakeholders come together to share ideas, discuss and prioritize in order to decide which role sustainability should play within the project. The community of practice theory and boundary object theory as well as the SDG procurement compass from MVI platform were used to give shape to the practices. During the graduation project, two practices were created in the form of online workshops. The first workshop focussed on the definition of sustainable ambitions within the project. During the second workshop, the participants formulated measurable goals and made a list of actions and key stakeholders. The workshops were tested during multiple case studies, and iterations on the workshops were made based on the received feedback. After iterations, the early stage intervention, also called SDG impact kick-off, is designed to be a set of three workshops. The ambitions -, actions -, and stakeholders workshop. Although it was not possible to measure the actual impact of the workshops on the projects that were used as case studies, the feedback and results from the workshop seemed promising. The workshops clarified how sustainability could be implemented and helped to create a concrete implementation plan. A plan that helps project leaders with integrating sustainability and helps procurement specialist with setting up sustainable public procurement procedures. All in all, these collaborative practices are believed to aid in the creation of more positive sustainable impact in construction projects. The workshops of the SDG impact kick-off form a beginning of a practice that makes sustainability an integral part of any project.

The world is becoming more and more technology-driven. The consumption of electronic products leads to an increase in electronic waste (e-waste). More than half of all the e-waste that is generated in the Netherlands originates from domestic appliances (WEEE register, 2019) and only 9% of all the e-waste will be recycled (Renewi, personal communication, 2019). The remaining waste will be dumped into landfill sites, and the energy and resources used to make the products will get lost, therefor products need to be designed with a ‘circular approach’. The goal of the circular economy is to use products, equipment and infrastructure for a longer time, and to improve the productivity of these resources. (Ellen MacArthur Foundation). One of the strategies of extending the life time of products within the circular economy is refurbishment: “A process of returning a product to good working condition by replacing or repairing major components that are faulty or close to failure, and making ‘cosmetic’ changes to update the appearance of a product” (Ellen MacArthur Foundation). Right now, refurbished products are not a common consumer choice. Therefor the question that is answered in this master thesis is: How can the design of a household appliance be optimized to increase the consumer acceptance with regard to the refurbished product? The research was divided in three parts. First the motivation of the consumer was investigated by means of a literature review and a survey amongst consumers. Then the preferred aesthetics of refurbished appliances were researched through literature and doing in-dept interviews. Lastly a research was done in order to optimize this process of refurbishment. Interviews and observations where done with repairers and refurbishers. Based on the results of the consumer research three different target groups were identified; the ecological buyer, the economical buyer and the secure buyer. Consumer research shows that the three aspects reparability, cleanability and timelessness cause a more efficient refurbishment process and a greater customer acceptance of the refurbished products. These aspects are turned into a set of guidelines that will serve as proposed requirements to design for refurbishment. They must be taken into account when designing the product, choosing materials and maintaining the product. However, only incorporating these guidelines would not be sufficient to enhance the consumer acceptance of refurbished products. Research showed that not only performance of the product plays a large role in the acceptance of the product. Awareness and trust should also be created. In addition, the experience of buying a refurbished product should be as fun and exciting as buying a new product. It was found, that when the product still looks like new, the customer is more likely to trust the product. The concept ‘looking good, feeling good’ is created on this insight. The core of the concept is that part of the cover can be replaced or refinished. Therefor the machine looks new while preserving the internal components and 80% of materials used in the cover. The customers can compose their own refurbished product by starting out with a refurbished base and then choose their own new or refurbished cover to create a stronger product attachment. All findings where combined and translated to a redesign of a fully automatic coffee machine. This was done by improving the accessibility of internal components and to create a modular structure on the inside of the coffee machine in order to make the process of repairing and cleaning more efficient. Moreover, three different front designs were created that meet the requirements of the aesthetics that are preferred for refurbishment. Combinations of colors and materials were tested with the target groups and the result were evaluated.