February 13, 2015

Ministerial Support for our work at the Lab

On Wednesday 11th February, DEFRA’s Resource Management Minister Dan Rogerson visited us at the Fab Lab to see what we have been getting up to since our September launch. He was given a tour of the machines room, had a peek into the materials library, and spoke to RSA Director of Design Sophie Thomas about the potential for make spaces such as this to become centres for circular economy innovation.

We were also able to hand him the recommendations from our recent roundtable on policy and legislation for circular economy, and we very much hope that these will be considered by manifesto writers and policymakers over the next few months!

Rogerson said:

“This government is committed to ensuring we use our resources more carefully and the UK is now producing less waste than ever before. We all have a responsibility to tackle waste and I congratulate Fab Lab and The RSA Great Recovery on its innovative workshops which can help businesses develop the skills they need to create new products out of existing materials. There are massive opportunities for businesses to make money from repairing, re-using and remanufacturing equipment to extend the life of products. Using our resources more carefully is not only good for the environment, it’s also vital to build a stronger economy and fairer society.”