Re:design:(net)WORK

Background and Objectives

The project was developed in a period of high unemployment rates in the border regions of Austria and Slovakia and aimed at alleviating this by creating long-term employment opportunities with particular emphasis on the unemployed belonging to disadvantaged groups. Many disadvantaged people in the job market are confronted with long-term unemployment.

The project “RE:design:(net)WORK” links employment creation with environmental concerns, especially on waste management. Discarded objects are redesigned to become “cult” objects in everyday life, thus resulting in employment creation in the fields of acquisition of materials, design, production and distribution of ReUse-Design products under a socio-economic business scheme.

The project targeted organisations that seek to employ socially disadvantaged people and in particular the young, elderly, people with disabilities and immigrants. It involved companies that deal with waste management, designers and consumers.

Main Activities

The project activities included:

• The creation of a catalogue of ReUse-Design type of products that can be produced with available waste material.
• Introducing a business model for social economy enterprises to include all business processes such as training, production and distribution.
• The implementation of this model in a Slovak-Austrian pilot business.
• Award ceremonies in Vienna and Bratislava.
• Evaluation of the employment impact, as well as the economic and ecological effects.

Main results

The project resulted in raising public awareness on sustainability in terms of a resource-efficient consumption of consumer goods. In the first year of its implementation, it conducted an online consumer survey in both Austria and Slovakia, which confirmed the interest among consumers in goods manufactured from waste material.

A number of successful products were designed and promoted throughout the project implementation period and during the second year a number of events were held involving the network partners and various social economy enterprises. The events also served as a forum for the network members to exchange lessons learned and experience gained from design to manufacturing and marketing.