Forward Thinking Design (FTD) proudly announces that our FTD Circular innovation project has won Gold in the prestigious WILD Design Awards 2024. This accolade underscores a commitment to taking a data and design led approach to applying sustainability and circular economy principles in the built environment.

FTD Circulars award recognition journey began with a Gold award at the Better Future Sydney Design Awards 2023. The project was then elevated to the Better Future Australian national awards where we secured another Gold, before winning Gold again on the global stage with the Better Future WILD Design Awards!

“We are honoured to receive this award and grateful to our partners and team for their dedication,” said Vanessa Cullen, Founder of Forward Thinking Design. “This recognition motivates us to continue pushing the boundaries of what a data-led circular economy can achieve.”

Project Overview:

Western Sydney based Forward Thinking Design has partnered with Brisbane based project management firm Ilimaf and the Melbourne based asset management software company Hardcat to develop a process, services and digital tools that enable organisations to take a data led circular economy approach to built environment design, construction and de-fit/demolition. Known as FTD Circular, this collaborative innovation project began by focussing on fitouts/de-fit and now extends to turning all built environments into valuable asset banks of materials, fixtures, fittings and furnishings data-enabled for trade and ESG reporting.

Significant Innovation:

FTD Circular is the first to offer such a sophisticated end-to-end, data-led process for reducing embodied carbon and waste to landfill through tracking, tracing, maintaining and diverting built environment materials. This approach can provide multi-stakeholder visibility across the entire product and building lifecycle, ensuring optimal decision-making, value maximisation and reporting for circular economy and ESG purposes.

Challenges and Impact:

According to Planet Ark, the construction and demolition sector contributes about 45% of Australia’s annual core waste. FTD Circular addresses this by redesigning waste-generating processes and enabling circular economy practices through the provision of training and digital tools. Organisations adopting our methods can significantly reduce the environmental impact of fitout and built environment construction and de-construction, focusing on eliminating waste and circulating material resources at their highest value.

Awards:

• GOLD WINNER BETTER FUTURE WILD GLOBAL DESIGN AWARDS 2024 - FTD CIRCULAR

• GOLD WINNER BETTER FUTURE AUSTRALIAN DESIGN AWARDS 2024 - FTD CIRCULAR

• GOLD WINNER BETTER FUTURE SYDNEY DESIGN AWARDS 2023 - FTD CIRCULAR

For more information about FTD Circular, Forward Thinking Design, Ilimaf, Hardcat and our award-winning approach, please visit our websites.