Building better "stuff" - towards a sustainable model.

The way we make the products we buy is flawed. 

Throughout human history most items made have followed a one way process. 

• Get raw materials,
• manufacture your product (by hand, now by machine),
• sell it to your customer
• when the product wears out the customer repairs it if possible/desired,
• Then disposal of it and get a replacement. 

This basic flow is the same for a medieval farmer’s ploughshare as well as a new outfit from Shein bought last week for a Saturday night party.

The problem we now have is with the size and speed of the market. More things are bought, by more people globally, and with increased disposability. All while mostly following that same general historic pattern. Almost all of these products made are extractive - all or some of the parts to the thing we are buying will end as waste.

The impact of this is compounding. Items at the end of life don’t go into a new cycle, they end at landfill. The cycle of consumption and disposal creates issues for ourselves, our children, our societies, and our planet that urgently need to be addressed. Left unchanged, our current habits are simply unsustainable.

Even more frustrating, items are made not to last as long as they could be. So instead of one item that lasts for years customers end up repeat buying an item over and over. More money over time for the same functionality.

There has been a mountain of items written about on this topic and on a circular economy and sustainable manufacturing. We know of items that can help, and generally what we think we need to do. But at the end of the day it comes down to a simple fact…. 

Changing how we make things is difficult. Very difficult.

• Retail is extremely competitive. Just think of how many times a day you are bombarded with offers and ads to get you to want and buy that “thing”! 
• Millions of companies are making items with an eye to the bottom line. 
• Consumers are always looking for the best value on the items they buy. Even more so with a higher cost of living. 
• Manufacturing, packaging, branding, logistics, returns - all are costs added to the bottom line. A company (no matter how altruistic) needs to have a healthy balance sheet to survive, so any change in method or input needs to be affordable and benefit the company. 

In the race to get the best product possible to the consumer at the lowest cost, it’s easy for a business to fall into the rut of just taking the established way of doing things. That “established way” for product manufacture is usually working with a set of suppliers to get the best costs for the product inputs, balancing warranty returns with product quality levels, the cheapest transport and shipping, and the most cost effective packaging. 

Making a conscious effort to shift from the status quo is difficult and expensive for companies that may not be able to afford it. Inertia is very present.

In any given week, there are a ton of items for any manufacturer or retailer to focus on. A shift in attention to changing to a more sustainable input will require the business to research options, trial and test different methods, and take on risk that a new input may not work. This is monetary cost (salaries, materials) and opportunity cost (risk, something else is deferred that could make the company money).  So at the end of the day, with all the distractions and pressures a business faces, the decision can come down to “that’s not really worth it”. 

At Manufaktory, we want to try and change that. We want to experiment with what can be done to improve things, to be a test bed on what can work and what issues are out there. We know that things will not be perfect, but we aim to product the best sustainable products that we can, at this time. And work to improve the level of circularity at every area of our business.

We know that this is a journey, but we want to start to….

• reduce the waste involved in production, packaging and transport.
• improve the quality, so that we extend beyond planned obsolescence
• give circularity on all items, so that each part of the product made becomes the start of something else.
• be a practical example of what can work and what may not (for us) by producing the best sustainable products we can.

… and finally…

• To share what we learn along the way. 

We realise that knowledge on methods and sources cannot be proprietary. We want to document what we find, what works for us and what didn’t. Allowing other makers to use this knowledge with other sources, and adopt what they wish and refine a better way of producing any product. 

It’s a small first step, but we are hopeful that we can start in our small way.