From Policy to Practice: The Role of Design in the Circular Transition

While Europe has set ambitious sustainability goals, translating them into practical solutions remains a challenge. This issue was at the centre of discussions during the Interreg Europe “Europe, let’s cooperate!” event in Copenhagen in April 2026, where policymakers, regional actors, and project partners explored how to accelerate the circular transition. 

At the thematic session on circular economy and local industries, the Interreg Europe project DeCo – Design Collaboration for Sustainable Business was invited to share perspectives on how design can help bridge sustainability ambitions and practical implementation. Environmental policies and regulations shape the sustainability transition, but their impact depends on how products, services, and systems are designed.

Many of the most consequential sustainability decisions are made during the design phase. Design choices related to materials, lifespan, repairability, and recyclability play a decisive role in keeping products and materials in use and enabling a circular economy (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2013). At the same time, design should play a stronger role in the development of policies and regulatory frameworks. Addressing this challenge requires closer connections between policy, research, and practice. 

Connecting policy ambitions with practical implementation is at the core of DeCo, an Interreg Europe-funded project led by LAB Institute of Design and Fine Arts. At the Interreg Europe event, Aino Vepsäläinen presented the DeCo project’s approach to using design to translate sustainability ambitions into concrete products, services, and business models.

Strengthening design competence 

Although many sustainability outcomes depend on design decisions, design expertise is still not sufficiently integrated into policy development and sustainability-oriented decision-making. European regulation nevertheless increasingly relies on design to achieve sustainability goals. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), for example, introduces new requirements related to durability, repairability, recyclability, and resource efficiency, while requiring companies to translate these requirements into concrete design and business practices (European Commission 2024).

Through design processes, sustainability ambitions can be transformed into practical solutions that can be tested, evaluated, and further developed. The circular transition can be understood as a process of redesign, rethinking structures, value chains, and modes of collaboration. 

As part of its contribution to the event, the DeCo project showcased Finnish good practices that demonstrate how design competence can support the transition towards a circular economy. The examples included the national training programme Circular Design – a Path Towards Circular Economy (Interreg Europe 2025) and the Circular Design for Business online course (Design Forum Finland n.d.). Both examples are included in the Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform as transferable practices supporting the development of circular design capabilities (Interreg Europe n.d.). These examples illustrate how competence development can help translate policy ambitions into action. Through DeCo’s network of seven partner regions, such approaches can be further shared and adapted across different European contexts.

Ultimately, achieving a circular economy requires more than regulation. It requires the ability to redesign systems, products, services, and business models in ways that translate sustainability ambitions into practical action. Strengthening design competence is therefore a critical enabler of a successful sustainability transition.