Over the past few weeks we've had the privilege of speaking to some very different audiences. From business leaders at our Swiss Re Shine programme pop up to Teenagers at a Green Careers Fair. On paper they couldn't have been more different, yet I kept noticing the same thing. They didn't need more information about climate change, recycling or sustainability. They needed a different way of seeing the world.
For years we've been told that sustainability is about consuming less, buying less and giving things up. It's often framed as a responsibility; something we should do because it's the right thing. Whilst there's truth in that, I increasingly believe it misses something much more powerful. Sustainability isn't simply about restraint. It's about design. More specifically, it's about recognising that many of the environmental problems we face today weren't created by malicious intent, but by well-meaning decisions that solved one problem while unintentionally creating another.
One of the examples I often share is the story of synthetic fishing nets. Plastic wasn't introduced because somebody wanted millions of tonnes of ghost nets drifting through our oceans. It was adopted because it was cheaper, stronger and lasted longer than natural hemp or flax. The invention solved a genuine problem for fishermen, but nobody fully imagined what would happen once those incredibly durable materials escaped into the marine environment. The same pattern appears throughout history. Time and again we've created remarkable innovations that addressed immediate needs whilst overlooking the longer-term consequences.
When people begin to understand this, the conversation changes. Waste stops looking like an unavoidable by-product of modern life and starts looking like a design challenge. The question shifts from "How do we reduce waste?" to "How could this have been designed differently?" That single change in perspective is incredibly liberating because it replaces guilt with curiosity. Rather than asking people to make sacrifices, it invites them to think creatively.
Research consistently supports this way of thinking. Studies into eco-design suggest that the overwhelming majority of a product's environmental impact is determined long before it reaches the customer. Decisions made at the drawing board about materials, manufacturing methods, repairability, longevity and end-of-life dictate much of what follows. Once a product has been poorly designed, consumers can only do so much to reduce its impact. Conversely, when products are designed intelligently from the outset, sustainability becomes almost effortless.
This way of thinking has become the foundation of everything we do at LOXKIN. People often assume we're in the business of making wood finishes, but that's only partly true. What really interested us initially was keeping wood in use. As we explored why so much perfectly good timber was ending up as waste, we discovered that the wood itself was rarely the problem. More often, it was the finish. Plastic-based coatings cracked, peeled or became difficult to repair, making replacement seem easier than restoration. The finish had quietly become the weakest link in the life of the product.
That realisation changed the question we were asking. Instead of wondering how to make another wood finish, we began asking how we could help timber remain useful for generations. Natural, repairable finishes weren't simply a nostalgic return to older materials; they became part of a much bigger system of extending product life, reducing waste and maintaining the inherent value already locked inside the wood. In many ways, the bottle of oil is simply the visible expression of a much larger philosophy.
This philosophy extends far beyond wood. Once you begin looking through this lens, you notice opportunities everywhere. You notice products that can't be repaired because a battery has been glued into place. Furniture that could have lasted another century if it hadn't been coated in an irreversible finish. Packaging designed for just a few minutes of use before becoming waste. Equally, you begin to notice extraordinary examples of products, buildings and businesses that have been designed with longevity, maintenance and regeneration in mind. The world starts to look less like a collection of environmental problems and more like an endless series of design opportunities.
Perhaps that's why one idea has stayed with me throughout this journey: waste is a failure of imagination. Not because people lack good intentions, but because we so often solve the problem directly in front of us without imagining the ripple effects further down the line. The encouraging part is that imagination can be cultivated. Once we learn to think in systems rather than isolated solutions, we begin designing products, businesses and communities that work with nature instead of against it.
If there is one thing I hope people take away from our workshops, it isn't a list of environmental facts. It's the belief that the future isn't something we simply inherit; it's something we design. And when we start designing with the whole system in mind, we begin to discover that perhaps, nothing is wasted after all.
