How Red Paddle Co are getting to grips with circular design
Success is rarely a straight line
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Since 2008, Red Paddle Co has focused on making inflatable paddleboards that perform as well as, if not better than, hard boards. Having refined the paddleboard design for performance, the company’s Head of Design, Phil Hawthorne, is now turning innovation efforts towards ensuring the company’s paddleboards can soon be made within a circular economy model. Paddleboards of the future will be designed so that no waste or pollution is created, they will be durable so they can be kept in use for as long as possible, and they will contribute to natural systems being regenerated.
Could you tell me about your work to date trying to move Red Paddle Co to a circular economy model?
Since 2015 we have been slowly making the shift towards a more circular model.
From the very beginning, our company ethos has been ‘no compromise’ when it comes to the performance of our inflatable paddleboards. Continuing this thinking, we are now working towards a belief that there should be no compromise in whatever we do, especially when it comes to the circular economy and the products we design. We’re not there yet and I don’t think we will be there in the immediate future. However, we’ve taken some big steps in the right direction.
We’ve introduced and educated our suppliers about the circular economy and are making a genuine difference with the products we bring to market. We have a huge advantage of being an SME and having a relatively small product catalogue. We are going through a pretty rapid growth phase and because of this, innovation and product development is at the top of the agenda, allowing us to consider the circular economy right at the ideation phase, giving us a huge advantage over other companies.
We have conducted several lifecycle analysis studies over the past few years on various products and, as I am sure you’re aware, we are most energy dependent during the production and disposal phases. Addressing both phases is a consistent point of focus for us, and whilst working on the complete recovery of the material at the end of a board’s life is definitely the most fun and interesting, the production phase was quickly identified as a smart win.
So what does that look like? What’s the reality of innovation at the production phase?
One major issue I can tell you about, which sounds simple enough now but at the time was a real headache, was with a certain batch of material. We had a real issue with pin hole leaks on the board’s main material. This was really harmful to both the brand, and for our resource use. We were creating a lot of waste and we had several unhappy customers and distributors. The solution involved a lot of meetings, visits and some pretty intense lab and supply chain evaluations. We eventually found the problem at our third-tier suppliers’ factory and their ventilation systems.
When the material was woven, the factory conditions were too humid, and consequently the fibers had locked in moisture. When coated and laminated, the water molecules evaporated and created pin holes throughout the laminate. Any obvious material defects were caught quickly, however some were not visible until the board had been created at our factory and then cleaned. The type of cleaner we used at the time was more aggressive and began to slowly attack the material during shipping and its first year of use. Customers then started to find tiny holes appear on their board where before there were none.
I think this was one of the most intensive exercises we had undertaken. I am happy to say that now we have several control measures and checkpoints in all our factories and the waste materials that were being generated are no longer an issue.
To us, this showed how you need to closely scrutinise every stage of the design and manufacturing process to ensure your product stays in use, and doesn’t end up as waste.
The circular economy has three principles: design out waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use, and regenerate natural systems. How do you put theory into practice?
Our main focus over the past few years has been to design out waste and extend the use of our products and materials as long as possible. We started small. Our first project was to remove glue from our packaging and instead utilise mechanical fastenings. The manufacturing process is a little more time consuming and therefore more expensive than the original packaging, but we feel it’s a worthwhile investment and one we will continue with.
As a second iteration, we decided to try and make our packaging completely compostable by looking into bio-based packaging, soy-based inks and corn starch polyethylene replacements. Some of these changes were simply too expensive at the time but the changes that we have made have pushed us ever closer to our goal of 100% compostable packaging.
In terms of the paddleboard itself, the main material of our boards is a reinforced laminate, where layers of different materials are fused together, which is not 100% recoverable. We have developed several materials with our suppliers, some of which have now been successfully applied — like our new PACT technology, which enables the board to keep its shape when inflated, but packs down to an ultra-small size once you’ve let the air out — and others have not. As these and other materials are developed, the cost will reduce and the applications will become more accessible. There are several materials I am waiting for and I always watch future developments closely.
Following our packaging projects, we wanted to review our products in the same way. We analyse each product for aspects which we could improve now and for those we hope to build into future development roadmaps.
One of our first products was the Titan pump. At the time we didn’t have the knowledge we do now, but we made the pump as repairable as possible. In the past we had first-hand experience in faulty products and needed to repair them. We saw that repair was not easy, so this became the main focus for the Titan project.
To date the level of repairability of our products improves with every launch, and now every single product we produce is serviceable in some way or another. A major advantage of product serviceability allows the customer to extend the life of their product indefinitely and offsets disposal. It also gives us the chance to cultivate our global community and support our customers by offering excellent customer service. As a result, we both improve our brand image and gain repeat custom when they come back.
The pump is a good example, but for an expensive product like the paddleboard itself, customers must be looking for durability. How do you design a product that lasts?
We include a repair kit with all of our board packages, so if a customer does have an incident, they can repair it with the proper materials and continue to use their board in the same way. We are also quite fortunate that there are a lot of RIB and boat repair services around that can also help with any more serious incidents, so that existing ecosystem can offer extra support.
We don’t provide a return and repair service…yet. However, we have focused on customer service, with 24-hour support and advice, and can provide spares for repair for almost all circumstances. These are coordinated through our customer service team with the spare parts being dispatched to customers directly.
What happens to products at the end of use? Are there any schemes to recover old paddle boards and use the materials to make new ones?
Rather than the product, we always ask ‘what happens next with the material?’, and we’re currently working with a few ideas relating to material recapture and repurposing current products. There are also a couple of ideas and research projects for complete recovery of the material for future boards, however at this stage the funding would be a pretty major barrier to entry.
By making our products in pure material we are now able to guarantee that at the end of their current state they can be more easily recovered in the future ready for their next application.
Transitioning to a circular economy is no easy task. What challenges have you come up against trying to move to a circular model?
The main issue is always price, the second I think is education.
The materials we want to use are really expensive or they don’t exist yet. It would be great if we had our own chemistry lab with mad scientists who could create amazing new materials for us, sadly we don’t yet! For a couple of upcoming projects, we are actually introducing suppliers to one another so they can pool orders to get the price point we need for emergent materials.
On the education side, this year we plan to push out various education pieces to inform our customers about the circular economy. It’s our hope that through these education platforms we will not only increase the demand on other suppliers but also more generally across the customers entire product demands and have a global impact.
We are really fortunate to be able to directly educate our suppliers, however our second-tier suppliers don’t always understand what we are trying to do and allocate little or no resource to it as they cannot see the direct gain immediately. I’ve had some pretty heated discussions about which materials we can use for certain products and components when driving our circular economy message, so improving their knowledge is something we are always working on.
Beyond Red Paddle, what do you think are the obstacles to overcome in a wider transition to a circular economy?
It’s supply and demand, and cost. Fortunately, in many industries there will be organisations that step up and tackle the hardest innovation challenges, with the benefits ultimately filtering through the rest of the market.
We believe we’re the leaders in the stand up paddleboard market, and in turn are the innovators. We’re always looking to push the boundaries of our current product range and drive towards developing the next big thing. This is great from a marketing and sales standpoint but a nightmare from the production and R&D side of things.
Whenever we source new technology or materials, we test them over and over again to accurately assess their suitability for our products applications. Due to the scarcity of these new technologies, our options for procurement are limited and the cost is higher. Inevitably we also bear the brunt if there are teething problems and by the time the kinks have been ironed out everybody else has an easy time applying them to their own applications and usually at much lower cost.
How did you become interested in the circular economy?
I’ve always been fascinated by the natural world and the outdoors, but this was cemented at Brunel University by Professor David Harrison and Dr. Fabrizio Ceschin. Following my studies, I worked for the university as a researcher and collaborated with well-known household brands working on adapting their products to a circular model. Since then everything I design is as circular and user-centered as I can make it.
At Red we all come from outdoors and watersports backgrounds and are all passionate about the world we live in, knowing we have finite resources. Circular design is becoming more and more popular and soon will be the ‘norm’. My personal belief is that many consumers don’t want to go outside and pick up rubbish during their down time. If we make smart changes at the very start of the design stage, this will propagate throughout the entire system. A customer can be aware enough to know that by purchasing a ‘considered’ or ‘circular economy’ product they are making a difference, and then they don’t have to think about it again. In parallel with a bottom-up approach that gradually builds that awareness, hopefully both approaches can meet in the middle, and we can start to have a positive effect on the planet instead of a negative one.
