Group Overview of Sustees

Following on from the Sustees Conference a number of business opportunities were witnessed during this event. We became interested in projects and companies which spoke at the event and was able to see how they had achieved success and what market they were aimed at. We noticed that there was many business opportunities for all aspects of living right through from ‘real nappies’ to sustainable coffins. From this we began thinking about possible research opportunities we could put forward to the University and for funding.

We were inspired by Alistair Fuad- Luke and his presentation about how designers should work together, he stated that working together enhances mutual learning in a driven environment. For this reason we collated together to form a team of Co-Designers all sharing a common passion for Sustainability. A number of business opportunities were explored.
An idea was formed for a ‘real nappy’ business, we feel this is something which needs to be addressed following on from the ‘real nappy’ talk.
‘Eight million disposable nappies are thrown away everyday in the UK.’[1]
This is something that should be approached in the future, we felt that we did not have enough experience in this area to progress this further.

It was decided that we would return to our discipline to explore ideas in the field of urban generation and sustainable building’s. We considered using the town of Middlesbrough as a basis for the project. We reflected on each member of the group and decided that collectively we had a wide range of skills to make a feasible business plan. We explored ideas and interests from each member of the group and plan to expand on these over the course of the MA.

[1] http://www.recycleforstockton.co.uk/realnappies/ 3.02.2009