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.

After Facebook renamed itself Meta, the metaverse was brought to the attention of the public eye (Schram, 2021). Newspapers and other news sources started writing extensively about this innovation that would change the world forever. What the metaverse exactly is or might become as it doesn’t exist yet, one can only speculate on. One way to describe the metaverse in simple terms is the worldwide web breaking free of its two-dimensional barriers and becoming three-dimensional through an immersive experience, unlocking many potential possibilities for new customer experiences. In particular, the metaverse has also evoked the interest of the digital customer experience agency TBWA\X. TBWA\X’s mission is to become the agency of the future, so they were curious to explore and investigate what the metaverse could entail for them. With the curiosity and potential of the metaverse for TBWA\X as a main focus, the following research question emerged:

“How can a radical innovation such as the metaverse be used to design a new customer experience for fashion.”

The element of fashion was added to the research question to scope the project. TBWA\X has several clients that operate in the fashion industry. Furthermore, various fashion brands are already exploring the possibilities of the metaverse (McDowell, 2021), paving the way for TBWA\X.

The methods applied to structure the project and achieve the desired results are the double diamond model, the Vision in Product design (ViP) method (Hekkert & Van Dijk, 2011) and the DIVE method (Mejia, 2021). The ViP method was applied to structure the first diamond, the research part. In order to obtain the necessary insights for the ViP process, a literature study was conducted, interviews were held, observations were recorded, news sources were monitored, and informal discussions were held. Next, the research phase led to the design vision. The design vision gives direction to the second diamond, the design phase. In this phase, the last two steps of DIVE were completed to arrive at a vision concept and an implementation strategy. As part of the design phase, co-creation sessions were held, and the end result was evaluated by experts.

The design outcome is a vision concept in the form of a video and accompanying strategy plan. The vision concept is envisioning the online shopping experience in 2032: the VR fitting room. The VR fitting room enables consumers to choose an immersive context, or backdrop, to their liking to achieve a hyper personalized and satisfying experience. To enter the VR fitting room, the consumer has to put on VR glasses. The consumer then moves into a virtual space that contains a digital twin, in other words, a photo-realistic representation of the consumer. This digital twin can try on clothes and the surrounding space can be adapted to the moment the clothes are worn. For example, when someone wants to buy swimwear, the environment can be set to the beach. This means that both the consumer and the digital twin will find themselves at the beach where the consumer can inspect the digital twin from every angle. The literature shows that the richer the context, the better the consumer can estimate whether the clothing meets the needs of the consumer.

This vision concept is a steppingstone for TBWA\X to start creating immersive experiences in the metaverse. TBWA\X requested an outcome that can be applied to all client categories and emerging innovations. Although these requirements do not directly apply to the VR fitting room concept, the individual elements of the VR fitting room and the design process do apply to these requirements. Namely, the software that needs to be understood to create the vision concept is applicable to make immersive experiences. The methods used in the process to build the VR fitting room, are aimed at exploring the possibilities of an innovation for SMEs, such as TBWA\X. Therefore, this thesis can be seen as a concrete step-by-step plan for TBWA\X on how to deal with innovation, as the methods described are applicable to emerging innovations, and where especially the DIVE method is suitable for TBWA\X.

The implementation strategy to make the vision concept a reality is a starting point for TBWA\X to start exploring future possibilities with their clients for creating immersive experiences.

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.

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.