A guide to working with local materials¶

This journey with Fabricademy and Woolshed was my first time working with wool and my first time tackling the problem of a wasted material in a region I wasn't native to, working with something I had almost no experience with (beyond buying a sweater at a store).

I realized is that the problem of wasted natural resources isn't new, and it isn't unique to any one place. It happens everywhere, in every community, in every country. On one hand we have materials going to waste; on the other, we have environmental and economic problems that could use some help. The question is: how do we connect these two things to create solutions that benefit local communities and the wider world?

These kinds of problems are systemic. They involve many actors, many stages, and many moving parts. Meaningful and lasting change requires combined effort from multiple directions. This made me feel overwhelmed as every direction I tried to take with my projects seemed not big or impactuful enough.

At Le Textile Lab in Lyon, we are fortunate to be a partner of Woolshed, a European initiative dedicated to valorizing Alpine wool in the region. That gave me a starting point but you might not have one. My goal with this guide is to help anyone who wants to tackle a problem of wasted materials, circular economy, or environmental impact, and to give you a clear way to think about approaching it.

Since time is limited in a Fabricademy project, you'll need to explore quickly and narrow your scope. But if this sparks something bigger, you could go on to build your own association or even a business. I hope it inspires you to look around and do something with what is already there.

1. Research¶

Start by looking at your environment. Think about the region, the climate, the local plants, animals, and industries.

What is locally produced?
Is there a byproduct from an existing economic activity?
Is there waste material being discarded from an industry?
Is there a material commonly imported that could be produced or replaced locally?
Are there invasive plant species that could become a resource?

I reccommend talking to people because you will get first hand responses and a lot of experience. Reach out to manufacturers, retailers, farmers, breeders, and waste management facilities. If this is not possible, interviews and surveys are always a good resource to try.

Who currently produces or holds this material?
What happens to it right now? (Is it landfilled, burned, sold cheaply, or simply ignored?)
Why is it wasted? (Too coarse for existing markets? No infrastructure to process it? The cost to process it exceeds its value?)
How much is available? (Is it seasonal, consistent, or unpredictable?)

Why hasn't this been solved already?

If this material is valuable, why hasn't someone already used it?
What is the issue? cost, regulation, performance? (it will probably be a combination of more than 1)
What would need to change for this to work? connecting people, a tech innovation, democratization of knowledge?

What has been tried before?

Do producers already know how to use this material?
Is there existing craft or artisanal use you can learn from? either in your community or elsewhere
Are there other regions working with similar materials? What are they doing?
Are there global examples — even from a different context — that show patterns worth borrowing?

After this stpe, you can do a mapping of all your findings. Remember to keep it simple and don't spend a lot of time researching and now working.

2. Scope¶

This is what i struggled with the most. I was thinking on what I could do with the material (possibilities are endless) but the previous research helps on identifying the gaps in the problem, focus on those. That's why I chose one application or context (acoustics/construction) and a goal (explore new materials and make them interesing for the industry)

The applications can be:

Apply your material to a different industry.
Replace a synthetic or polluting material.
Exploit a property of the material that does not work for other markets.
Use it where performance/quality standards are different or lower.
Remix the material to create composites.
Replace an imported material with a locally sourced equivalent
Create a shorter, more traceable supply chain for an industry that currently has none
Fill a supply-demand gap, connect B2B.
Leverage a regulatory change.
Meet a growing demand for natural, bio-based, or low-carbon materials
Position it for emerging sectors where standards are still being written (you can help define them)
Create a consumer product.
Toolkit or methodology (define performance or quality standards, testing, etc)

The sweet spot is usually where two or three of these overlap (think a Venn diagram) where

[your material] replaces [polluting material] in [new industry] leveraging [regulatory changes/initiatives]
[your material]

To decide on one application think about:

Is there actual demand? Who would use this, and why?
Is it better than the alternatives? Think about performance, cost, and sustainability. It's ok if one material does not 100% replace another. It's importnt to understand when/where they are comparable or better.
Can you prove it in the time you have? Can you prototype and test it? Sometimes testing is a challenge due to technical abilities and equipement, it's still important to understand how would you do it, if you need to ask for help or if it will be a proposal for someone else to build upon your delivery.
Is there a path to scale? Could someone eventually build a business around this?

A product that is ready to market should answer YES to most of these however your project can focus on the exploration, testing and documentation of this material rather than a final product that is ready for sale. It's also normal that you don't know all of the answers.

3. Define deliverables and outcomes¶

Depending on who your target is, you may want to adjust the deliverable. It can be a producer, a manufacturer, a funder, or a brand so that you can make a compelling case for your material

A manufacturer of a product that could use your material will want proof about meeting technical/quality standards, material samples, early prototypes.
A producer of the material will want economic proof (expected revenue) of how much a project could scale
A brand that sells a final product will want a finished product proof + a compelling narrative
A funder will need mainly economic proof that an addressable market demand exists and that this can scale beyond your specific project.

Choose one audience type and one deliverable for proof to work on during the project. I chose to prove to manufacturers the acoustic performance of wool and providing material samples that could demonstrate that wool can be applied to final products with different finishes and techniques.

4. Work¶

Your deliverables can take the form of one or more of these:

Physical Proof: Prototypes

Make samples showing the material in action. Try following a "system" of material combinations or variants (e.g: 3 types of biomaterials by use-case, composition, finish, etc)
Document the process with photos, video, and notes. I recommend Loes Bogers guide and templates
Show a side-by-side comparison with the alternatives or map the new materials in a matrix (according to their specifications)

Data Proof: Technical Specs

Adding data to your work can help convince manufacturers or other interested parties. Depending on your application you will need special equipment and knowledge for testing. I reccommend reading and looking online to get familiar with the methods and equipment that you will need. Try to scale down to the simplest form of testing with your available resources. You can also ask for help to local universities, profesional communities, government agencies, etc. If it's not possible, I would suggest that you at least propose the ideal testing (mention the industry standards) and expected values for the materials to be considered compliant or not.

Test the material: acoustic absorption, thermal performance, durability, whatever is relevant to your material applications.
Build a simple spec sheet to compare the materials against industry standards.

Economic Proof: Cost Analysis Adding buiness proof can be helpful if you want anyone to take on the next step.You can show what the material costs to source and process and compare it to current market costs. Estimate what producers could earn. Show resource (money, time, water, materials) savings if possible. Everything adds to help start conversations with the industry.

Stakeholder Proof: Real Conversations

You can run more surveys/interviews or just collect more data from conversations about how potential customers feel about the material/product. What do manufacturers say about it? What is missing for them to adopt your material? Do they see any challenges?

You want to show the interest and potential of the material at the end of the project but this feedback is also useful while you're still working on it. It can help you iterate and improve your process or design. "Fail often and fail fast"

All of these points can help you deliver a stronger impression. Remember to also build the narrative of your origin story with this material (what is the current situation?, why is it important?, what are you trying to do with this project?) to get to a core message.

5. Your turn¶

I'm sure you will learn a lot by doing this project just like I did. I want to ask you to leave something behind for someone else to build on. Think about what would you have liked to know but learned on the way? Is there anything you developed that someone can reuse? Can you leave behind recipes, templates, documents, processes? These can help us build knowledge and move faster.

Thank you and good luck!

-Diana.