Over the past few months, I have walked through how our best Design for Disassembly (DfD) solutions might be discovered by looking towards the past. In debunking the knee-jerk reaction that newer is better, we see how, in the making methods of craft-based and indigenous cultures, we often find sophisticated, elegant, and more holistic design solutions that were at some point eradicated (or at least tossed aside) in the name of progress.

I've walked you through how to audit your own designs to see what materials and processes can be redesigned for DfD. Whether you're working at a startup scale like Sabai Design, or an international scale like IKEA, this is the clearest way to holistically assess the sustainability of your objects.

Lest you're still concerned that this is a nice theory but not realistic in practice, some of the world's leading companies are already implementing DfD as a key component of their path to circularity.

Who all is working in this realm, and how are they approaching it to satisfy not only ecological but also economical realities? I've talked with a handful of thinkers and designers, from a surprising spattering of industries, to tap how they are exploring Design for Disassembly in their respective fields – and to uncover how their work might be a model for your own designs.