Towards a citizen lab for valorization of sustainable resources and techniques for a circular economy of the objects – ARTDECO

ARTDECO gathers 4 research teams and one social enterprise around participatory research in the field of Sustainability Science, by looking more particularly at the processes involved in crafting sustainable materials.
This project will establish a framework for implementing a low-tech citizen lab in a follow-up project. This lab, established in Alsace region, will gather local stakeholders and scientific partners, and will aim at transforming local residual organic resources (from the agriculture or food processing sectors) into materials and objects for local use.
The main objective is to understand how a low-tech process, regarded as virtuous per se, can lead towards a sustainable transition of the usages and practices, at the territorial scale and with respect to the local context.
In order to foster the emergence of this low-tech citizen lab, ARTDECO will rely upon three main phases :
- The analysis of how rooted in the territory of interest technical solutions for transformation of organic waste and co-products into materials might be;
- Lab trials for low-tech techniques adapted to the territory in cooperation with local stakeholders and know-how;
- Formalizing a framework for the citizen lab, with recommendations for governance and knowledge management in contact with the territorial context and similar initiatives in other territories.
The model eventually co-constructed could be replicated and applied to other territories and/or technical solutions for other sectors (food, energy, habitat, mobility, etc.)