Repair is an essential aspect of the circular economy and has been discussed numerously. However, the focus has been primarily on the technical possibility of repair, not on willingness to repair (WTR). As a result, many people do not consider repair an option since technical feasibility does not always translate to repair behaviour. This is especially prevalent in electronics. Therefore, this study explored opportunities to stimulate people who typically do not repair electronic devices to increase their WTR.

Seven barriers of WTR were found: awareness, desire for new products, lack of engagement, lack of trust in repair, fear for further failures, lack of clarity, and lack of attachment. Additionally, products that are less likely to be repaired are either ‘up-to-date’ (valued for their self and social identity) or ‘workhorse’ items (valued for their functionality and long lifespan). These factors influence consumer decisions about repair. The study used the I-Change model to analyse consumer behaviour and identify opportunities to stimulate WTR.

Using these four opportunities, a new interaction concept was developed. This concept aims to make people feel proud, excited, and eager to share their experiences. Similar to how when you want to show your friends how well you can drive after you get your driver’s license. This approach guided the design direction and established criteria for the final concept.

In the development phase, four concepts were discussed, and two were selected based on the criteria to be combined into one: the Made-By-You product service system (PSS). This concept allows users to design and assemble their electronics, supported by an application that centralises and streamlines information on assembly and repair. This approach aims to raise users’ awareness of the product’s components and indirectly encourage repair considerations. Providing a hub for all product-related information makes the repair process more straightforward and accessible.

A proof of concept was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of translating this concept into a tangible product. For this, a Senseo coffee machine was redesigned to fit the Made-By-You concept. The redesign involved minor design changes to enhance “assemble-ability,” but the key change was how the product was presented to the customer. The parts should arrive in preassembled units, so the assembly process does not feel long or complicated.

The assembly and repair of the product are supported by the Made-By-You application, which offers a clear method for users to gather information. It provides manuals enhanced with digital features to improve the user experience, repair diagnostic tools, recommendations, and expectations for the user journey.

After assessing the proof of concept against the criteria, it demonstrates that the Made-By-You concept can be translated into a tangible product. However, due to the project’s time constraints, a user test could not be conducted, which could have provided valuable insights into its effectiveness. Despite this limitation, this research represents progress towards enhancing WTR. Future studies could expand upon and test the concept, while other designers might leverage the identified barriers and opportunities to design their own solutions.

The environmental impact of the transport sector, particularly aviation and road transport, is a growing concern. The European Green Deal aims to reduce GHG emissions from transport by 90% by 2050, but decarbonizing the sector remains a challenge. Despite the need for more sustainable travel behaviour, encouraging this shift remains difficult, and GHG emissions from unsustainable travel behaviour continue to rise. Multimodal digital mobility services have the potential to improve the environmental performance of transport, but their success depends on a systemic shift towards a stable, innovative and collaborative European transport network.

This project, conducted within the Seamless Personal Mobility Lab and part of Task Team 1.6 of the TULIPS consortium, focuses on the development of a multimodal TRIP platform for passengers. In collaboration with SINTEF, the project aims to create a multifaceted design strategy that encourages sustainable travel behaviour and systemic change in the European passenger transport network.

Through extensive research, including literature reviews, market analysis, and expert interviews, key insights into designing for behavioural change were gained. Multiple design sprints and co-creation sessions resulted in four platform strategies that were quantitatively tested. The quantitative study provided a foundation for some final iterations and was synthesized into a final platform strategy.

The platform addresses motivational and capability barriers to sustainable travel by using choice architecture to nudge travelers toward sustainable options, inform them about their climate impact, and make sustainable choices salient, appealing, and feasible, allowing travelers to stop and rethink their habitual choices.

Additionally, a design roadmap has been created which envisions a transport shift towards a 2050 mobility scenario of seamless and sustainabale international travel, supported by stakeholder collaboration and digital- and physical infrastructure improvements.
In addition, a design roadmap was created that envisions a transportation transformation to a 2050 mobility scenario of seamless and sustainable international travel, supported by stakeholder collaboration and digital and physical infrastructure improvements.

Valuable resources are discarded on a daily basis, in the form of home furniture. Tonnes of prematurely disposed, functional and repairable furniture is often destined for landfill or incineration, with small proportions recycled. The emergent sustainability needs of the planet, and changing policies for repair of consumer products, drives the home furnishing company IKEA to explore repair as a circular strategy to enable prolonging the life of IKEA furniture. This project explores the context of repair at IKEA and is focused on the use-life of furniture, in people’s home.

Linear models aimed at profit making from the sale of new furniture, have so far prevented exploration of repair in IKEA stores. Subsequently leading to lacking visibility, knowledge, competencies, and resources for repair. While interventions are now being explored, in the form of tests and few examples at IKEA globally, channels for exchange of knowledge and service to customers are limited or yet to be developed.
In terms of customer behaviour for repair various values associated to furniture, from functional, aesthetic, emotional, material, and social, motivate customers to repair their home furniture. Yet highly person and product dependent and oftentimes limited perceived ability, in terms of knowledge, skills and resources for repair of home furniture, prevents people of taking any actions for repair. Furthermore, missing triggers, especially in the face of easily available and affordable new furniture, and high effort, low impact perception of repair leads people to replace rather than repair their furniture.

A participatory approach to include various perspectives relevant for repair, guided the research + design project. Desk research, interviews, front days, and co-creation with various stakeholders from IKEA helped identify the context of repair at IKEA NL. In terms of the infrastructural capacities, shortcomings, and subsequent opportunities for customer-end repair interventions by IKEA. Customer insights were gathered from desk research and further explored through interviews, survey, and co-creation sessions. Pain points, challenges and needs identified for distinct customer personas, enabled conceptualisation and prototyping of repair interventions to prolong the life of IKEA furniture.

Within the scope of this project, customer challenges of missing awareness of resources and overwhelming options for repair were explored alongside their needs for a sense of preparedness, advice, and guidance for repair of home furniture. In-store repair and refurbish activities for customers were explored as prototypes in collaboration with external experts to mitigate the limited repair resources and competencies in the store. The activities explored repair as a creative and social process. These were proposed to inspire, motivate, and enable customers to add value to their IKEA furniture. Creatively repaired products, demonstrations, hands-on engagement, and advice from experts were evaluated to investigate customer experience and desirability of the workshops.

While customer experience was positive and desirability for future workshops was high, yet there is low scope of feasibly and viably operating the workshops in their current format. Prominent challenges included limited dedicated space for and exploration of creative repairs and repaired products for inspiration, as well as many interdependent systems, especially in case of customer engagement and. The prototype workshops revealed a need to develop infrastructure, knowledge and products that are creatively repaired, prior to engaging with customers for knowledge exchange.

An alternate model of in-store repair and refurbish of IKEA furniture is proposed as future recommendation in the form of a visible creative repair hub, hosted by external experts. To enable development of a range of creatively repaired furniture for sale and inspiration, thereby preventing the waste of abundant damaged furniture from showroom and customer returns. A local repair hub in-store and expert collaborations also offer the opportunity to cater to customer repair requests in-stores, or referral to at-home services.

With over 6 billion smartphones in use worldwide, high emissions and a considerable amount of e-waste, there is a need for a more sustainable approach. One such an approach is prolonging the use-times of smartphones, and for that repair should be popularised. This thesis examines how to prolong the use-time of smartphones through stimulating repair actions. The most occurring defect is to the display, while using the smartphone for one more year after a display repair saves about 20 percent in greenhouse gas emissions. For users to choose repair over replacement, repair needs to be affordable, accessible, and attractive, which current repair options do not adequately deliver. Smartphones can also be designed more reliable and repairable to support repairs and prolong use-times. These strategies need to be balanced with the smartphone’s competitiveness for a sizeable impact.

Therefore, a repair platform is proposed for stimulating repair, alongside a repairable smartphone that aims at further triggering repair actions and competing with high-end smartphones for a sizeable impact. A collaboration between repair shops and manufacturers needs to deliver value to the user. The proposed system delivers accessibility by creating a repair network of independent shops, which gains user trust by offering original parts and warranty. It makes repair more attractive by reducing the time and effort it takes and giving users insight into their environmental contribution. This creates value for repair shops by delivering customers and enabling quicker turnaround times. The manufacturer benefits by receiving the old parts, being more in control of their supply chain and gaining a strengthened competitive positioning. By being more accessible and attractive, users are more motivated to repair. Affordability is the third factor necessary for favourable repair yet this is only achieved in part by quicker repair times. It needs to be further investigated how to reduce the costs of spare parts. This thesis contributes by combining the need for a repair network with repairable smartphones. A repair network needs more repairable smartphones, and a repairable smartphone needs a well-functioning repair network.

Investing has become a hot topic among the younger generation since the Covid-19 crisis. However, much of its potential is still unused, as seen in a big group of the younger generation which is positive to start but procrastinates this decision. While this younger generation would like to make a positive impact with their money on the environment of the planet earth, the existing investing propositions aren’t helping them with that sustainable mission.
In this thesis, I researched how Rabobank can help this group of young non-investors start investing, but with a sustainable focus. Creating a win-win situation for the non-investor who gets motivated to start investing consciously while at the same time helping them to fulfil their sustainable ambitions.

The textile industry is one of the largest industries in the world. It brings economic wealth to many countries but is also one of the largest contributors to environmental pollution. Textile companies nowadays often mention sustainability in their business models. However, it is noticed that consumers do not trust the word sustainability when textile companies use it. The uncertainty about the actual sustainability of clothing has led to a need for a high credibility label that indicates the environmental and social sustainability of the production process of an item. This research therefore focuses on the research question: How can a widely recognized sustainability label indicate both the environmental and social impact of the production process of a clothing item in a way that best informs consumers during their purchasing practices? This exploratory research is conducted commissioned by and in collaboration with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. The research presents the first base of information that will contribute to the discussion of implementing a (mandatory) sustainability label. In order to analyse the research question, three phases in this research are completed: the use of labels, the environmental impact of a clothing item, and the social impact of a clothing item. The research concludes in multiple recommendations for further research due to the exploratory character of this research, recommendations for implementing the new sustainability label, and recommendations for policy makers.

In the Netherlands, around 700.00 parcels per day are delivered by PostNL. The first part is delivered directly to people’s homes; the second part is delivered to a retail location where people then pick up the parcels themselves. This assignment was about the second flow of parcels, more and more consumers are choosing to pick up their parcel at a retail location, but the locations cannot handle the increasing volume anymore. This led to the following research question: Design a new PostNL service solution enabling consumers to receive their parcel in the way they prefer. The solution should lower the pressure on the current retail network and be adapted to the changing future context. As a next step in the process, research has been done into market conditions and consumers. Consumers were interviewed to create a customer journey about the order and shipping process. Consumers visiting a parcel point were interviewed as well as employees and owners of the parcel point. Lead users who came up with a solution for the problem themselves were also interviewed. Many consumers experienced the parcel points as a necessary evil because they are not at home during the day and therefore depend on a parcel point. They prefer to receive their package at home and do not want to go to a parcel point after work. They also indicated that picking up a parcel takes more time than just the transaction; they have to park, wait in line and wait for an employee to find the parcel. Some consumers also indicated that it was difficult to arrange something officially with PostNL. Subsequently, further research was done into where the frequent online shoppers live and whether this group had specific characteristics. It appears that frequent online shoppers are generally younger and receive a minimum of 5 parcels per month. PostNL does not have a shortage of capacity in every district; some districts still have a lot of retail locations available or fewer parcels are delivered to retail in a specific district. Based on the research, the Vinex districts and the high-rise districts around the city-centre have been selected as areas where the most improvement is possible. Various concepts have been devised to solve the problem, taking into account the insights of the research and the requirements from PostNL. The final proposed solution is a roadmap making use of lockers to receive parcels and a platform for more customer-oriented and efficient shipping. The lockers are placed at the entrance of the high-rise apartment buildings, so PostNL can always deliver the parcels at the home of the consumer. In the subsequent phases of the roadmap, the lockers are opened to retailers who deliver their goods themselves and other couriers who can use the locker for a fee. In the final phase of the roadmap, the couriers will collaborate even more, which leads to more efficiency and therefore sustainability. On the platform, the shipping wishes of the consumer ordering online are shared with the participating couriers so that they can offer a price for this request. Couriers can base their price for example on their available capacity and whether they already have to deliver a parcel near the address. PostNL earns a percentage on every transaction via the platform.

To realize the shift towards a Circular Economy, products should stay usable as long as possible. Maintaining products is the most efficient way of retaining their desired level of performance. This is called Product care. Product care can be understood as any action that helps to prolong the lifetime of a product. The aim of this thesis is to explore how designers can stimulate users to perform product care activities. This goal has been reached through a practice-based approach and connecting it with strategies from existing literature. This took place at the University of Technology Delft. The context of Product care and the product care behavior of end-users have been researched through a diary study, a micro-emotion scan, creative sessions with design students and literature regarding repair and maintenance. This revealed two things, there are 7 types of product care and each user has a different profile regarding their skills, motivations and barriers. This shows that analyzing which type of product care you are aiming for and defining your specific user are essential requirements. To develop design strategies for Design for Product care various methods were used. A brainstorm session with designers was held to develop product solutions that stimulate product care. An ideation session was held by myself and real product examples were collected that already stimulate Product care. The product solutions were used to cluster into design strategies. The clustering process led to 8 design strategies: experiences, enabling, informing, change, reflecting, social, control and appropriation. hese can be linked to existing strategies and theories regarding Circular, Emotion-centered and Behavioral design. to transfer the knowledge about the design strategies to designers a design tool was developed. The process was iterative and the 2 biggest iterations were tested with design students and designers. These tests showed that a few important criteria for the test were that it should teach the designer about the different types of product care, the design strategies and they should take the type of user and product into consideration. The tool needs to provide a sense of structure, and still be flexible to fit everyone’s process. It should provide examples of how a design strategy is implemented into a design. The final tool is the Product Care Kit, a set of magnetic cards used for brainstorming, ideating and discussing. It presents the most important factors which influence Product care. The set consists of the following cards: persona cards, product cards, product care type cards, design strategy cards and example cards with product solutions for each design strategy. This tool helps to analyze and understand the context which you are designing for. It helps to create conceptual design ideas for product care. In the future this tool should be further evaluated with designers in practice and taught to design students.The outcomes of the tool should be validated by end-users. The tool can potentially lead to sustainable care behavior and lead to physically and emotionally durable products.

In the last decade, an increasing amount of people has become aware of the negative impact their behaviour has on the environment. However, most consumers are not aware of the negative environmental impact of the products they purchase and possess. Research has been done on different aspects of products for a circular economy, such as product longevity, and on the purchase process but mostly for marketing reasons instead of sustainability. Research has also been done on the gap between intention and behaviour of sustainability minded people. This research presents barriers, but no research was found on translating these barriers into solutions. Little was found in literature about making appropriate sustainable buying decisions. The main objective of this thesis is to stimulate consumers to exclusively purchase products with long-term psychological value, with the ultimate goal of reducing the ecological footprint of the consumers. In the first part of this research the characteristics of personal long-term value of products are identified. Data for this study is obtained through ten in-depth interviews and literature review. The second part of this research aims to identify how the purchase behaviour could be changed and which factors influence the purchase behaviour. This part contains a literature review and utilises the research through design method, in which five different prototypes are tested. The third part of this thesis translates this new theory into practice. Three new prototypes are developed, which should together affect the change in purchase behaviour. These products are validated with five participants over three weeks. The results of the interviews show three categories of psychological long-term product value: products that carry memories, products that satisfy basic needs and products which enable human goals. These last two categories complement each other. The research on behavioural change shows that the human goals should be discovered first, which results in a personal set of long-term product values. Next, consumers have to be reminded of their values during the purchase process. Finally, sufficient commitment should be created to resist the products that do not fit the personal set of long-term product values. For this, a game is proposed to raise awareness and discover this personal set of long-term product values. This game enables the consumer to train the reasoning behind the desire for products. The validation test showed that the game is successful in creating awareness and in training consumers to reason about products with personal long-term product value. To make the consumer remember their set of personal long-term product values in the purchase process, two reminders are proposed: the ‘Product Calendar’, and a sticker set ‘Stick to your values’. These designs remind the consumer of their long-term product values, translate the game into real life and create commitment. In conclusion, this project enables designers to understand long-term psychological product value, gives them a framework to design for purchase behavioural change, and the designs of this project enable consumers to make more sustainable purchase decisions.

The effects of the linear economy on our environment are becoming more visible every day. Governments act by introducing sustainability related laws and legislation, stimulating companies to make their products ready for a circular economy. This project aimed at using the benefits of the Internet of Things to design a circular supermarket lighting product-service system for Signify. The result of this design project is StoreSight, a result oriented product-service combination that provides store owners with value that goes beyond the illuminaition of the store only.

Signify already offers circular lighting services (e.g. Light as a Service) in a few segments, but is aiming to also do so in the supermarket segment. However, the length of the refurbishment cycles of the supermarkets hinders Signify to offer Circular Lighting as it is offered in other segments. The length of the refurbishment cycles of supermarkets are often a lot shorter than the technical lifetime of a lighting system. As a result, luminaires are replaced and thrown away despite being in perfectly good condition.

Different academics point out that the Internet of Things (IoT) creates opportunities for circular propositions. The connection of physical objects through the internet enables them to sense their own and their environments status, process this information and interact with their users. These capabilities help service providers to extend the useful life of products, maximise the utilisation of products, loop products through additional use cycles, regenerate natural capital from their products, and make sure these products are used efficiently. Since Signify wants to become a player in the field of IoT and is already equipping its products with sensors and connectivity, there is an opportunity to use this for circular purposes as well.

The result of this design project is the StoreSight concept, a circular result oriented product-service combination that enables the reuse of retail luminaires. Over time, StoreSight will evolve from a service that enhances attractiveness of the store, into service that enhances the shopping comfort and finally into a service that gathers different types of data to enable store optimisation. The StoreSight system roughly consist of three components: hardware, a service squad, and a software platform. The first component, the hardware, consist of a modular lighting grid with movable CE ready luminaires and upgradable sensing devices. The second component, the service squad, consists of the stakeholders from Signify and its partners that will interact with the store owner during the contract period. They will make sure the luminaires will be reused when the store is refurbished. The final element is the platform, a digital software application that enables the different stakeholders to control the lighting and access data about the luminaires from so-called luminaire passports. The StoreSight concept shows how IoT could enable stakeholders to communicate with each other about the luminaires and their remaining value. These insights improve the collaboration of stakeholders in reusing the luminaires in a new lighting plan.

Aortic stenosis is one of the most serious heart valve diseases and is the result of calcification of the aortic valve leaflets. This calcification is irreversible and affect the functionality of the heart valves. The only treatment is an aortic valve replacement. The trend in heart valve replacement is moving from open heart surgery towards minimally invasive techniques where a heart valve prosthesis is placed over the native aortic valve, called the TAVI procedure.

A crimped stent that contains a heart valve prosthesis is pushed upwards through the femoral access route with a delivery catheter. This prosthesis is placed in the aortic annulus and wedged over the native valve. The positioning of the heart valve prosthesis is important for the success of the procedure and durability of the prosthesis. A coaxial placement to the aortic annulus in the center of the aorta lumen is the target during this positioning of the prosthesis.

The Medtronics and Edwards delivery systems, that are currently used, only have the possibility to be steered with a maximum of 1 rotation, providing an alignment with the aortic annulus in the frontal plane of the body. The rotation to provide the alignment in the sagittal plane is lacking. This report will focus on the question if extra steerability of the delivery system will provide a better positioning of the tip of the delivery system, which in the end, will position the heart valve prosthesis.

The Edwards delivery system will be reverse engineered to look at the current mechanisms that are used to provide the rotation in the frontal plane. Subsequently, two experiments are performed to select the best configuration for the modification on the tip of the delivery system. Ultimately, the designed prototype will be validated with two tests to answer the research question if the extra steerability will provide a better positioning.

The prototype is validated by comparing the positioning of the Medtronics and Edwards delivery system with the prototype during an experiment where the three systems have to be maneuvered to a predefined position in an aorta model of glass. This predefined position represents the center of the aorta lumen in a coaxial orientation. Two rotations and the xyz-coordinations of the tip will be measured by an Aurora NDI system and the results will be compared.

It showed that the prototype provided a bigger reach within the aorta lumen and a had a bigger domain of angles in which the tip could be orientated than the prototype. Moreover, the prototype provided a better alignment in the sagittal and frontal plane with regards to the reference point.

The research only focused on the positioning of the tip and didn’t take the deployment of the heart valve prosthesis into account. Further development of the prototype is needed to make it useful for the TAVI procedure. In addition, more research is needed to validate the prototype in a dynamic environment that represents the reality with blood flow and more tortuosity in the access route. Nevertheless, the prototype look promising to be used for the perfect positioning of the heart valve prosthesis which will have a positive effect on the durability and functionality of the prosthesis.