News & Releases
December 5, 2022
FabCafe Global Editorial Team
FabCafe Global and Loftwork Inc. are proud to announce the 53 awarded prizes of the crQlr Awards (“Circular” Awards) 2022, an award that gathers circular economy projects and ideas from around the world.
The crQlr Awards, which are celebrating their second edition this year, are based on three criteria: “Circular, not linear” “Action, not prestige,” and “Gain from global perspectives”. In addition, a Special Prize, the “FabCafe Global Prize,” has been newly established to honor bottom-up activities aimed at empowering communities around the world.
The call for entries, which was open for approximately two and a half months, attracted 131 projects from companies, organizations, start-ups, designers, and other groups and institutions from 30 countries around the world.
The jury includes Noriko Ishizaka, President of Ishizaka Sangyo, which has achieved a 98% reduction and recycling rate in the industrial waste treatment business under the new vision “Zero Waste Design,” Mitchell van Doojiweerd, Sustainability Manager of the globally renowned DGTL Festival, and Amorpol Huvanandana, co-founder of moreloop, a one-stop market for giving new life to upcycled fabrics to SMEs. In addition, five members from FabCafe Global, which has offices around the world, have selected circular ideas and projects that help improve human life, the natural environment, and the economy.
For each winning entry, the judges have given a unique prize name and an evaluation commenting on the points they found insightful about the project. Winners have also been presented with a certification and brand kit aimed at supporting and publicizing their circular economy initiatives.
A hybrid crQlr Summit featuring cross-talk sessions between the winners and the jury is to be held in February 2023. Details will be announced on the official website in early January.
*Circular design refers to the design of products and services that aim for a circular economy. Design includes the design of systems.
crQlr Awards complete prize list:
crQlr Awards 2022
Application period: September 1 – October 21, 2022
Total number of applications: 131 projects / 30 countries
Number of awards: 49 projects
Special Awards: 4 projects
Official Website: https://crqlr.com/2022/
I would first like to express my sincere appreciation to all of the applicants of the crQlr Awards 2022 and to the judges for their expertise and support. Connecting the dots in the circular economy requires creativity and transformative partnerships, both of which we could see reflected in this year’s crQlr Awards winner’s works.
This year, we celebrate diverse projects where grassroots thinking, traceability, and transparency were key factors in identifying opportunities in the circular value chain. Winners included purpose-driven waste-to-resource works, clever integration of modular technologies, enriching educational and artistic experiences, and cutting-edge methods for carbon capturing leading to new value-creation.
The crQlr Awards 2022 winners represent to me harbingers of a more open, fair, and circular society. I invite everyone to dig deep into and connect with this year’s winner for lessons, hints, and new opportunities in this growing circular society.
The crQlr Awards 2022 Certification Logo
Winning entries have been presented by a unique prize name and comments from the judges, as well as the Certification Logo produced by the organizing committee. These can be used as public relations tools in press releases, websites and other forms of communications to publicize their initiatives more widely.
Honoring “bottom-up activities” for the community
A total of 4 prizes has been awarded to bottom-up actions aimed at solving local community issues, regardless of category or community size
First of all, we’d like to express our huge gratitude to all those who entered. All of the judges learned so much through the process of reviewing this year’s entries. I hope this helps to fulfill the purpose of the Special Prize, which is to spotlight bottom-up activities aimed at solving community issues and make them more widely known. Overall, there appear to be so many initiatives around waste, particularly in food and clothing. This points to a strong sense of crisis: we have yet to escape the system of mass production and consumption, even when we should be accelerating the shift to a circular economy.
Because most crQlr Award entries meet the first and third criteria “Leverage Local Resources” and “Regenerate Natural Resources”, the Special Prize focuses on the second: “Started and Sustained by the Community”. Three of this year’s Special Prize winners take different community-led approaches. Fair, Circular Solar Panel builds communities through open-source development. Sargablock revives communities by transforming local issues into opportunities. Nihon Kusaki Lab collaborates with communities by setting up laboratories in local areas. And a fourth Special Prize winner, Casa Gallina, aims to sustain communities by means of education rather than material circulation, reminding us that circularity goes beyond thinking about resources.
We award these four projects a Special Prize because they each have something to teach us about how bottom-up approaches can comprehensively solve local issues.
▼ For the complete list of award-winning projects, please click on the link below.
Project name: Casa Gallina
Project outline: Casa Gallina is a transdisciplinary cultural project whose programming is focused on learnings and actions relating culture, community, and the environment. The project is located in Santa María la Ribera, a neighborhood of Mexico City, where it seeks to facilitate synergies inside the local communities.Through its platforms, Casa Gallina seeks to promote, inoculate, encourage, and revitalize initiatives and proposals about resilience, the environment, creative models of associations, life styles of responsible consumption, as well as alternative models of social interaction.
Casa Gallina also seeks to strengthen local community networks, as well as alliances with initiatives from other areas that share similar interests to establish processes of dialogue, work, and exchange.
Judge: Atsuko Ogawa
Judge’s comment: I really identify with this project. It focuses on how children can live better in the future, rather than what adults should do to survive the present. From an educational perspective, it considers exchanges between people as a form of circularity and puts in place systems and rules to facilitate these. It’s wonderful to see it already implemented. Speaking personally, to begin from this kind of loving perspective is the most important thing, even when thinking about circularity, as any future we choose to imagine can change completely. I also think it’s so important that we adopt the perspective of the next generation, as they are the reason we pursue circularity in the first place.
Other judges who selected this project:
・Kotaro Iwaoka (FabCafe founding member, FabCafe Hida)
・Kosuke Kinoshita (FabCafe Kyoto)
・Jeremie Bellot (FabCafe Strousbourg)
Project name: Fair, Circular Solar Panel
Project outline: Photovoltaics is the energy source of the future, but also creates a massive waste stream. Biosphere Solar is a global collective developing a fair and circular solar panel. This way, we aim to set a new design standard for the solar industry, making circularity the norm. We are developing a modular PV module design, which can be disassembled for repair or refurbishment, can be upgraded with new technology, and can be recycled at high value at its end-of-life.
Judge: Noriko Ishizaka
Judge’s comment: Biosphere Solar is tackling the issue of solar-panel waste with a much-needed circular system that’s open-source and scalable at a global level. The glass in solar panels is currently unrecyclable, so this modular construction works by extending the lifespan of the panels instead. I hope this technology can really take off.
Project name: UP FOOD PROJECT
Project outline: In February 2021, we started by operating a web media called “Social Good Catalyst” that disseminates information on social issues and businesses that are working to solve them.
In the process of managing this media platform, we learned that the food system has a very large negative impact on the environment, health and economy. Also, since food is something that affects all people, I thought that if we could change people’s mindsets and behaviors here, we would be able to create a very large positive impact. Therefore, in January 2022, we started the “UP FOOD PROJECT” to promote problem solving through co-creation of multiple companies, focusing on the food loss area.
Judge: Richie Lin
Judge’s comment: Food waste has always been a frequently asked question in our society, and this project tackles the problem in a creative way by taking wasted food and re-valuing it in the form of new products. At the same time, it is crucially important to develop multiple practical products for consumers to use on a daily basis! Making use of what was originally regarded as waste, recycling it to give it a new value, and attracting consumers to buy and use it: this is truly a sustainable system!
Project name: AIRBUBBLE
Project outline: AirBubble creates a purified microclimate for children to play in, a true bubble of clean air in the center of Warsaw (Poland). It incorporates a cylindrical timber structure wrapped in an ETFE membrane protecting 52 glass algae reactors. This creates a real urban algae greenhouse. The space is equipped with ropes, foot pumps, and bouncy spheres, and can function as both playground and an outdoor classroom. The white bubbling noise of the algae gardening system masks the surrounding urban noise to provide a calming atmosphere in which to play and interact.
Judge: Mitchell van Dooijeweerd
Judge’s comment: I love it when innovation, education and playing comes together. Especially when it we see it in a context as the AIRBUBBLE.
We all acknowledge that we are only part of an interconnected web of life, and that all of our actions have consequences. Try to leave a trace, a positive trace. While you are playing in the airbubble, you are regenerating the environment. That’s a win-win for nature and for people, that’s what we need to accomplish in the coming years. Bring people and nature closer to each other so we become connected again.
| Judges | Projects |
| Noriko Ishizaka (President of Ishizaka Inc.) |
・Fair, circular solar panel (Netherlands) ・Toothpaste Paper & Bamboo Toothbrush as a Earth friendly choice (Japan) ・The Fossilizator (France) ・Mikafi Roasting Platform (Switzerland) ・True Circulation; death connects birth (Japan) |
| Mitchell van Dooijeweerd (Sustainability Manager of DGTL Festival / Revolution Foundation) |
・Landless Food (United Kingdom) ・AIRBUBBLE (United Kingdom) ・Neochromato Process (Japan) ・Trash Encyclopedia “Trashpedia” (Malaysia) ・Machi no Closet (Machi Closet) (Japan) |
| Yeliz Mert (Knowledge Sharing Coordinator at Global Landscapes Forum) |
・UP FOOD PROJECT (Japan) ・Fair, circular solar panel (Netherlands) ・Upcycled Speakers (Japan) ・Mineralloop (Netherlands / Taiwan) ・Manabi no Moto, source of education (Japan) |
| Amorpol Huvanandana (Co-founder of Moreloop) |
・Sargablock (Mexico) ・PACKBAGS (Netherlands) ・Ecofemme Organic Reusable Cloth Pads (India) ・NUNOUS (Japan) ・Mirai Instruments Labo (Japan) |
| Richie Lin (Founder & CEO at MUME Hospitality Group, Head Chef of MUME) |
・Leap (Denmark) ・UP FOOD PROJECT (Japan) ・The Purhyphae Project (Spain) ・Fair, circular solar panel (Netherlands) ・Sargablock (Mexico) |
| Lingchih Yang (FabCafe Toulouse Co-founder) |
・Leap (Denmark) ・Fair, circular solar panel (Netherlands) ・The Fossilizator (France) ・Plant-Based Fiber Products (Taiwan) ・Stible (Japan) |
| Jérémie Bellot (Architect / Digital artist and founder of AV Extended / Owner and Creative Director of Château de Beaugency) |
・Leap (Denmark) ・The Purhyphae Project (Spain) ・Sargablock (Mexico) ・Another Moon (South Korea) ・The Fossilizator (France) |
| Atsuko Ogawa (Loftwork Kyoto Art Director) |
・Aquaterrestrial Recolonization (United States) ・GURUGURU Radish (Japan) ・Casa Gallina (Mexico) ・Dayra (Palestine) |
| Kotaro Iwaoka (Hidakuma CEO) |
・Fair, circular solar panel (Netherlands) ・MYCL Composite Project (Indonesia) ・GOOD CYCLE BUILDING 001 (Japan) ・ASO-DEKASUGI GUARDRAIL Project (Japan) ・Nihon Kusaki Lab (Japan) |
| Kousuke Kinoshita (FabCafe Kyoto MTRL Marketing and Production) |
・A drop in the Ocean (France) ・Beer the First (Japan) ・Aquaterrestrial Recolonization (United States) ・The Fossilizator (France) ・Open Material (Japan) |
| Judges | Projects |
| ・Kotaro Iwaoka (Hidakuma CEO)・Lingchih Yang (FabCafe Toulouse Co-founder)・Atsuko Ogawa (Loftwork Kyoto Art Director)・Kousuke Kinoshita (FabCafe Kyoto MTRL Marketing and Production)・Jérémie Bellot (Architect / Digital artist and founder of AV Extended / Owner and Creative Director of Château de Beaugency) |
・Sargablock (Mexico) ・Nihon Kusaki Lab (Japan) ・Fair, circular solar panel (Netherlands) ・Casa Gallina (Mexico) |
A hybrid crQlr Summit featuring cross-talk sessions between the winners and the jury, as well as other events, is to be held in February 2023. Do not miss the chance of watching and participating in this opportunity to connect with the players at the forefront of the circular economy. More details to be announced on the official website in early January 2023.
Official website: https://crqlr.com/2022/
Launched as Japan’s first award in the field of circular design, the crQlr Awards aim at broadening sustainability players’ perspectives through exposure to not only practical know-how in existing industries, but also to inspiring projects from all over the world. The overarching goal of the Awards is to enable companies, artists, and all sorts of professionals to make full use of their creativity in a wide range of fields toward the implementation of circular economy systems.
Last year’s awards attracted 204 projects from 24 countries, and applicants included companies, organizations, startups, and designers. Among them, 63 award-winning projects were presented with “crQlr Certification” kits to support and promote their circular economy initiatives.
FabCafe Global
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Circular Economy Hub
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FabCafe Global Editorial Team
This articles is edited by FabCafe Global.
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