London creative studio Made Thought on Friday 14 August unveiled a new innovation laboratory in a bid to design solutions to the toughest challenges businesses face to be future fit. By harnessing the power of co-creation and fearless re-invention, the purpose is to put ideas into action to build a better future. Fast.

Made Thought Labs launches as the world rushes to find answers to the social, environmental and economic threats posed by Covid-19 and the ever growing climate crisis.

Made Thought Labs will see the world’s top design thinkers, leaders in business and technology work together to co-create design and system solutions to problems deemed insurmountable for decades. The agenda is focused on answering the needs of new audiences in a progressive, creative way – to reinvent models to be focused on responsibility, mass ethics and the fastest route to net zero. Business  holds the power and ambition; technology holds the system to make the impossible workable and brand is the fulcrum, accelerating transformation through influence. This has formed a new ecosystem, working collaboratively on making change.

The Made Thought Labs division is born out of the demand from Made Thought’s most foremost clients. Tech giant IBM have teamed-up with Made Thought Labs and environmental campaign group A Plastic Planet to create the world’s first online encyclopaedia of plastic-free materials.

The platform, called Plastic Free, will aim to bridge the gap between packaging and product designers who are looking to reduce the use of single-use plastic and manufacturers of sustainable materials.

It is being created in collaboration with global campaign organisation A Plastic Planet, which created the world’s first plastic free supermarket aisle in 2018 and launched the Plastic Free Trust Mark in 2019 certifying products and materials plastic free.

It is the debut project of Made Thought Labs, which aim to find “creative solutions to the toughest solutions” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet, “the world doesn’t know where to look for a trusted, extensive and unbiased source.” It therefore hopes to offer a “rich database of existing products and raw solutions” for designers’ needs. It will have a filtering system which allows you to pick qualities such as oil resistance, malleability and durability. Other options include material combinations converted to give the qualities we currently rely on plastic for.

Made Thought Labs is also working with iconic craft beer giant BrewDog on reframing sustainable business practices. BrewDog have re-invented the whole life cycle of their brand with an ambitious sustainability charter, devised with Made Thought Labs. This includes carbon neutral production process and distilling beer from waste bread products from the supermarket supply chain

The brand has also set up a £1 million a year fund to support research initiatives that help the wider industry to have a positive impact on the planet. James Watt, Captain, BrewDog said: “Working together with Made Thought we are completely focused on becoming far more sustainable in everything we do and setting a new standard for our industry as we look to change the status quo and to inspire others to do more to help save our planet. Made Thought are quite simply the best and most inspirational people we have ever worked on our brand and business with.”

Ben Parker, Co-founder of Made Thought and Made Thought Labs, said: “The coronavirus crisis has seen the future accelerate into view. At Made Thought we believe co-creation is key to transformative design to fast-forward change.

“We believe hardship provides the conditions for the kind of miraculous progress that takes us all to new levels of being. The future belongs to those societies, businesses and people bold enough to use adversity as their oxygen.”

Jessica Douglas, Blockchain Services Leader UK and Ireland, IBM said: “This is a defining moment for health and wellbeing of humans and the planet.  Forward looking companies that have managed through the immediate crisis of COVID 19 are taking the time to redesign their businesses for the reality.”

“In the last few months. human beings have proved once again what amazing things can be achieved by individuals collaborating in companies and communities – and how fast we can move.”

Commenting, A Plastic Planet Co-Founder Sian Sutherland said:

“All our work at A Plastic Planet underpins our single goal – to ignite and inspire the world to turn off the plastic tap. As entrepreneurs we are passionate about the power of business to create real change, at scale and at speed. But there is a fundamental knowledge and connection gap between the makers and converters of plastic free alternative materials and the creative community.

“Everything humans make starts with design and we need to empower designers with unbiased information to help them create plastic free solutions for industry. This new global platform will be the resource designers are hungry for, created with the world-class combination of IBM technology and Made Thought Labs deep strategic thinking and creativity.”

For more information visit: www.madethought.com

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