Understand the product. Follow the materials. Put repair knowledge back into design. Most products are designed around the moment of sale. A circular system asks a different question: what happens when the product wears out, breaks, becomes outdated or is no longer needed—and who has the knowledge, tools and ownership to keep its value in circulation? When batteries are glued in, spare parts disappear, software blocks replacement components, materials cannot be separated, or the repair costs more than replacement, disposal becomes the default. The alternative is to design products, factories and communities around longer life, shared use and multiple cycles of value. Common failures should be accessible, diagnosable and fixable with available parts, tools and instructions. Repair and maintenance should support trades, small businesses, apprenticeships and practical knowledge. Communities should be able to borrow expensive or rarely used tools rather than forcing every household to buy them. Products and components should have pathways for return, refurbishment, remanufacture and reuse. One process's surplus energy, water or material can become another process's useful input. Local fabrication and shared digital designs can shorten some supply chains and expand practical capability. Open a card to see what each model does, whether it is working, why, where it falls short and what other communities or manufacturers can learn. No matching models. Try a broader search or another focus. Repair Cafés make the repair worker visible again. People do not merely drop off broken goods; they often learn alongside experienced fixers. The model also redirects some jobs toward professional repair when specialized work is required. The important innovation is not that every owner becomes a technician. It is that the design preserves options: self-repair, independent repair or manufacturer service. Caterpillar reports substantially lower new-material, energy and greenhouse-gas requirements for remanufacturing certain engines and components compared with producing new equivalents, within the stated process boundaries. The model changes the unit of design from a single plant to an industrial ecosystem. Materials, steam, water and other resources are mapped across organizations rather than optimized in isolation. The model also creates opportunities for skill-sharing, DIY learning and repair. The City of London reports that the wider London network has saved members millions of pounds and diverted substantial material from waste. Fab Labs combine tools with training and knowledge exchange. Their biggest contribution may be giving communities the ability to make, test, repair and adapt rather than simply consume finished products. Flins demonstrates that circular manufacturing can become a core industrial activity. The deeper test is whether refurbishment and reuse actually displace virgin material and unnecessary new production over time. Are common failures reachable without destroying the product? A product is not meaningfully repairable if critical parts, diagnostics or documentation disappear. Can independent tradespeople and owners participate, or is service locked to one provider? Does everyone need to own this item, or could access provide the same benefit with fewer products? Is there a realistic path to reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture or material recovery? Recycling alone is not circular if overall throughput continues climbing without limit. The people who fix broken things possess a database of failure that most design teams never see directly. Adhesives, proprietary fasteners and inaccessible components make repairs unnecessarily difficult. A technically replaceable component may still fail because parts, diagnostics or pairing software are unavailable. Externalized material and waste costs can make replacement look artificially economical. Manufacturers cannot remanufacture what they never get back. Communities lose repair capacity when trades and hands-on learning are treated as secondary careers. A product can contain recycled material and still be disposable, short-lived or impossible to repair. The circular economy becomes real when somebody changes a purchase, design, repair pathway, shared asset or production process. Extract Design for life The cases in this explorer are based on published information from Repair Café International, Fairphone, Caterpillar, Kalundborg Symbiosis, Library of Things, the Fab Foundation and Renault Group, together with repairability research and right-to-repair resources from iFixit. Claims about specific programs reflect the organizations' published information. Environmental savings are not automatically comparable across programs because boundaries and methodologies differ. The goal is not to make every person repair everything they own. It is to preserve options: maintain it, fix it locally, replace a part, share it, refurbish it, remanufacture it or recover its materials without unnecessarily destroying the value already created. The bigger shift is cultural and economic: treat repair workers as experts, treat products as material banks, treat shared tools as community infrastructure, and design production systems around multiple useful lives. Before buying or making the next thing, ask: how will this be maintained, repaired and used again? The future is not a spectator sport. Be the media. Why do we keep buying things we cannot repair?
Waste is often a design decision made before a product is sold.
A production system designed for long life and repeated value.
Repairable products
Skilled local work
Shared equipment
Circular manufacturing
Whole-system design
Distributed production
Explore the working models.
01Repair knowledge as community infrastructureRepair Café · Global networkLocal repair experts help people diagnose and fix products together.Explore →
02Design the product to come apartFairphone · Modular electronicsA phone designed around user-replaceable parts, repair guides and long support.Explore →
03Manufacture the next lifeCaterpillar · Cat RemanUsed components return as manufacturing inputs instead of becoming scrap.Explore →
04Design the factory as an ecosystemKalundborg Symbiosis · DenmarkCompanies exchange excess water, energy and materials so one process's surplus becomes another's input.Explore →
05Access without ownershipLibrary of Things · LondonResidents borrow useful equipment instead of buying items used only occasionally.Explore →
06Share production capabilityFab Labs · Global networkCommunities gain access to digital fabrication tools, skills and a worldwide knowledge network.Explore →
07Turn the old factory toward the circular economyRenault Refactory · Flins, FranceA former vehicle-assembly plant repurposed around vehicle life extension and circular mobility activities.Explore →
Before calling something circular, ask six questions.
Can it be repaired?
Are parts and manuals available?
Who can repair it?
Can it be shared?
What happens after first use?
Does the system reduce total material use?
Repair workers should help design the next product.
The barriers are economic and institutional—not just technical.
Products designed for assembly, not disassembly
Parts and software are controlled
New products can be cheaper than skilled labor
Reverse logistics are missing
Practical skills are undervalued
Circularity becomes marketing
Choose your starting point.
From selling more objects to creating more value from what already exists.
Manufacture
Sell
Use
Discard
Maintain
Repair
Share
Remanufacture
RecoverMake durability visible all the way through the system.
Working examples, not theory.
What if repairability became a measure of good design?
Making things Differently
Mobilized News · Making things differently
Start with the design problem
Durable design+Repair access+Shared tools+Material recovery+Local skills=More value from less stuff
01Design
02Make
03Use + maintain
04Repair + remanufacture
05Reuse materials
The missing experts: Repair technicians, mechanics, electricians, machinists, seamstresses, carpenters and tradespeople see how products actually fail. A whole-system design process should bring that knowledge upstream—before the next generation is manufactured.
What do we want?
The alternatives are already being built
01 · What it isCommunity repair events with tools, materials and experienced repair volunteers.
02 · Working?Yes at broad grassroots scale, with thousands of Repair Cafés worldwide.
03 · WhyIt combines practical expertise, local trust, learning and immediate cost avoidance.
04 · LimitVolunteers cannot overcome unavailable parts, sealed designs, software locks or every complex repair.
05 · LearnRepair skills are social infrastructure worth preserving.
What to copy: Put repair experts in the center of the learning process. Document recurring failures and feed that intelligence back to designers, buyers and policymakers.
01 · What it isModular smartphones with replaceable batteries, displays, ports, cameras and other components.
02 · Working?Yes as a design proof: current models support DIY repairs with ordinary tools and sold spare parts.
03 · WhyThe likely-to-fail parts are accessible instead of being permanently bonded into the device.
04 · LimitRepairable products still need competitive performance, long software support and reliable parts supply.
05 · LearnRepairability must be engineered in before production.
What to copy: Design around predictable wear. If the battery will fail before the frame, make the battery easy and economical to replace.
01 · What it isCustomers return used cores for credit; components are disassembled, restored and remanufactured to specifications.
02 · Working?Yes at industrial scale; Caterpillar reports hundreds of millions of pounds of material collected through returns.
03 · WhyA core-return system gives valuable components a route back into production.
04 · LimitReverse logistics, inspection, quality control and recoverable product design are essential.
05 · LearnWaste falls when manufacturers have an economic reason to get products back.
What to copy: Create a return pathway and a financial reason to use it. Circularity becomes stronger when the old product has recognized value.
01 · What it isA long-running industrial partnership sharing resource streams across public and private companies.
02 · Working?Yes over decades, with numerous resource exchanges and continuing expansion.
03 · WhyCompanies cooperate where one facility's surplus has economic value to another.
04 · LimitIt depends on proximity, trust, compatible resource flows and long-term coordination.
05 · LearnWhole-system design looks between factories, not only inside them.
What to copy: Before treating a by-product as waste, ask which nearby organization could use it as a resource.
01 · What it isLocal self-service libraries for drills, sewing machines, cleaners, garden tools and other useful equipment.
02 · Working?Yes as an expanding urban sharing model with tens of thousands of users and reported household savings.
03 · WhyMany tools provide value through access, not permanent private ownership.
04 · LimitInventory, maintenance, convenient locations and financially sustainable operations still matter.
05 · LearnSometimes the circular product is a service.
What to copy: Identify expensive items people need rarely, locate them in trusted community spaces and build maintenance into the operating model.
01 · What it isLocal labs with shared digital fabrication equipment and common technical capabilities.
02 · Working?Yes as a distributed learning and prototyping network operating across well over 100 countries.
03 · WhyExpensive production tools become shared infrastructure rather than barriers to entry.
04 · LimitPrototyping is not the same as competitive mass production; labs require skilled management and funding.
05 · LearnLocal production starts with local capability, not merely local demand.
What to copy: Share tools and knowledge together. A machine without mentors does not create a local production ecosystem.
01 · What it isAn established automotive site transformed toward refurbishment, circular-economy services and new mobility activities.
02 · Working?Operating at industrial scale with more than 2,000 employees reported at the end of 2025.
03 · WhyIt reuses existing industrial assets, workforce knowledge and logistics instead of treating circularity as a small side project.
04 · LimitLarge-company circular programs can still coexist with high material throughput and continued new production.
05 · LearnIndustrial transition can repurpose factories and skills rather than simply abandon them.
What to copy: When industries change, ask what existing factories, workers, tools and logistics can be converted to new circular functions.
The Mobilized circularity test
The test of success: Not how much material is collected at the end—but how long products stay useful, how much new extraction is avoided, and how much practical capability remains in communities.
The knowledge loop
Product failsA hinge cracks, battery dies, seal leaks or motor burns out.
Repairer diagnosesThe technician identifies the real failure mode.
Pattern emergesThe same weak component appears repeatedly.
Design changesMaterials, fasteners, access or modules are improved.
Next product lasts longerRepair knowledge becomes design intelligence.
Whole-system upgrade: Create formal feedback channels between repair shops, warranty teams, manufacturers, procurement officers and design engineers.
What gets in the way?
What can we do where we are?
The Mobilized shift
Linear model
Circular capability
The pathway
01Design for disassembly
02Make parts available
03Build repair skills
04Share underused equipment
05Recover components
06Feed lessons into the next design
Source base
The question to take with you