Are you a designer, creative? Can you come up with solutions to problems of waste & consumerism? If so, then No waste Challenge is definitely for you.
The No Waste Challenge is an initiative by What Design Can Do, an international organization that maximizes the impact of design and creativity on society. They have partnered up with Kenya Climate Innovation Center to enable designers and creatives in Kenyan to participate in this global design competition.
According to What Design Can Do, every year, we dump a massive 1.12 billion tonnes of waste worldwide. If this continues, the global annual waste production is expected to skyrocket by 70% before 2050, which is bound to accelerate social and environmental problems.
Bringing it home, in Nairobi alone, 2, 400 tonnes of waste is produced daily, of which 60% of it approximately collected and only around 10% recycled. The rest is dumped illegally or burned.
Hence why What Design Can Do (WDCD) is launching the No Waste Challenge, its third Climate Action Challenge in partnership with the IKEA Foundation. This global design competition calls on all creatives and innovators to address the enormous impact of waste and consumerism on climate change. Winning ideas are made into a reality with €10.000 in funding and a global development programme co-created with Impact Hub.
Do you have what it takes?
The No Waste Challenge is looking for design-driven solutions at various scales. Proposals should be exciting, feasible, potentially scalable, and respond to at least one of three global design briefs as presented by WDCD. Applicants can submit their proposals online via the No Waste Challenge platform, the deadline is 1 April 2021.
The competition is focused on 6 partner cities around the world: Tokyo, Mexico City, São Paulo, Delhi, Nairobi, and Amsterdam. On 28 May, they will announce the challenge winners, who then receive funding and enter a development programme with Impact Hub that propels their projects through 2022.
Calling on designers to step up and lead, the Creative Director of WDCD, Richard van der Lake has this to say: “Designers are in a unique position to change how things are made, and what they are made of. A growing number of creatives have already taken an active role in the transition to a circular economy, by experimenting with materials and processes, raising awareness, and inspiring vital new narratives around waste as a resource. But there is a lot more potential. Now more than ever, the design community must step up, own up and lead.”
