Nick Gant and Tanya Dean have sustained a 10 year research agenda regarding the role, value and agency that materials, in particular waste materials, have within social and sustainable development.
Waste is a result of how we feel and think as well what we do (Gant 2015) therefore we need to understand how we can elevate the value of waste socially and culturally as much as how we manage it physically.
The 'Sole-Searching' project uses pairs of shoes made of many types of waste material to research the way we 'think and feel' about waste materials as well as how we can use them. Understanding how as society we assign value to waste is arguably the key to preventing it. Some of them would be considered unorthodox using dog hair, breast milk and oceanic plastics etc - but each material, the associated relationship to its user and the role of making with the material interact to provide frameworks for elevating the value of waste through a process of meaning-making.
This research has been presented at a number of international research conferences and by invitation to industry, including as part of sports and lifestyle brand PUMA's Sustainable Design Collective and in features for trend forecasters such as WGSN, Franklin and Till, and Fashion Futures.
Through this and related projects Gant has developed have Valorisation Framework (Gant 2016) that develops clear, tested strategies for we creatively elevate the value of waste (valorisation) for more sustainable consumer cultures and 'virtuous' circular economies.