Katie Treggiden
Defiant Hope
Katie Treggiden lost faith in a positive solution to the environmental crisis, but found her way back to a sense of ‘defiant hope’. A designer, author, speaker and podcaster, she connects the worlds of craft and commerce, inspiring and educating teams to tackle global challenges through design.
Biography
Katie Treggiden is the founder and director of Making Design Circular, an international membership community and online learning platform for environmentally conscious designers, makers, artists and craftspeople. She is also an author, journalist and podcaster championing a hopeful approach to environmentalism.
Katie has published six books about design and the environment, is a frequent contributor to national media, and a regular keynote and event host at global events addressing design, craft, the environment and the economy.
With more than 20 years’ experience in the creative industries, Katie regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, The Observer, Crafts Magazine, Dezeen and Stir. She is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through her sixth book, Broken: Mending & Repair in a Throwaway World, and podcast, Circular with Katie Treggiden.
Katie was the co-founder of women’s network Bloom and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a non-executive director of Cornwall’s largest creative hub, Krowji.
Speaking
Katie inspires practical hope in the face of the world’s biggest challenges.
Hosting
Katie is an informed interviewer on issues of design and sustainability.
Broadcast
Katie is an educated commentator on issues of design, craft and waste.
Topics
Katie has huge appeal to any audience that cares about design or the environment. From leaders and organisations who want to make a difference but aren’t sure where to start. To companies who want to improve staff engagement, retention and recruitment by demonstrating their commitment to environmental responsibility. Companies who want to foster creativity, collaboration and innovation and organisations who want a stellar reputation for environmental and social responsibility.
Some specific topics are outlined below:
Waste: The Raw Material Of The Future
Engaging the audience from the moment she steps onto the stage with a simple demonstration, Katie Treggiden will argue that waste is not a fact, but a category and that objects and materials become redefined as waste when they cross a series of ever-expanding boundaries.
Explaining that waste is created at the threshold of our skin, the walls of our homes, our city limits, state boundaries, the Brandt line, our coastlines, and finally the Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space, she will leave the audience in no doubt that we have run out of space for our waste.
But it’s not all bad news: if our boundaries can expand, they can also contract. If we can recategorise once-valuable materials as waste, we can also re-categorise waste as a valuable new raw material.
Katie will share innovative examples of designers and makers using waste as their primary resource. From a swing made from human hair to glassware made from dumped domestic appliances, she will demonstrate our capacity for change and spark defiant hope.
Cultivating Hope In The Face Of The Environmental Crisis
Katie Treggiden signs off every email "Stay curious, imperfect and defiantly hopeful." She runs a membership community and online learning platform called Making Design Circular, designed to empower designers and makers to join the circular economy and to help them believe that they can make a difference. She writes books and articles and records a podcast, all created to inspire hope in the face of the environmental crisis. In short, she is an environmentalist who has built a public profile on hope.
So, what happens when she loses hope? When she drives past a wildfire in a county famous for its ‘mizzle’ (a portmanteau of mist and drizzle)? When she sees temperatures break record after record, railway lines warp and runways melt, all while those in positions of power put profit (and votes) before people and the planet?
In this highly personal talk, Katie will share her own story of losing all belief in a positive solution to the environmental crisis and how she found her way back to the ‘defiant hope’ that now offers a daily reminder in her email signature.
She will share the three-step process she has created that has already helped hundreds of others move through feelings of despair, reconnect with the natural world and take aligned action.
Mending Objects To Mend People, Planet And Profit
A grassroots repair movement is starting to affect the decisions made by increasingly large companies and international lawmakers, and yet businesses are still reluctant to engage. “If we offer, or even enable, repairs, won’t people buy fewer of our products?” Actually, the opposite is true.
In this eye-opening talk, author of Broken: Mending and Repair in a Throwaway World (Ludion, 2023), Katie Treggiden, will share the reasons that elongating, and perhaps even eliminating the replacement cycle, is good for business, as well as people and the planet.
Building on the research she conducted at the University of Oxford, and her subsequent book on the same subject, Katie explores the complex relationship we have with repair, the social and cultural as well as logistical barriers to mending, and how offering or enabling repairs to your products can improve customer loyalty, more profitable business models and reputational resilience.
Example Videos
Publications
Katie Treggiden is the author of six books on design, craft and the environment and contributor to more.
Recent books include:
Broken: Mending and repair in a throwaway world
Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure
Her other books and contributions include:
Weaving: Contemporary Makers on the Loom
Urban Potters: Makers in the City
Makers of East London
The Green Maker Initiative Book (chapter)
What do you get when you book Katie to speak?
Katie is most commonly asked to keynote but she is happy to chair panels or interview other speakers on stage, while she is at the event. And she can add value with bolt-on workshops or 1-2-1 follow up sessions for attendees.
Katie is an experienced speaker with an audience of her own who is happy to work with you to help you promote your event.
This can include:
Pre-event video
Co-operation in pre-event PR and media interviews
Contributed articles for event blogs or programmes
Promotion on social media
Feedback
"Katie not only highlighted the horrifying scope of the world's waste problem, but helped the audience to think differently and begin to recategorise waste as an opportunity. Most importantly, she left them feeling hopeful and ready to take action."
Daniel Nelson, Organiser, Atlanta Design Festival
"Katie cuts through the bluff and bluster of trends to eke out underlying ideas. As a critic and commentator, her analysis enriches the debate with hard-gleaned insight, clarity and charm."
Josh Fehnert, Radio Broadcaster, Monocle 24
“Katie's presentation was impactful, concise and engaging, and the audience feedback was nothing short of fantastic. Working with her was an absolute pleasure and I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a dynamic speaker for their next event."
Clara Kippelen, Event Organiser, General Assembly
"Katie is the obvious choice when looking for a respected face from the world of design. She engages audiences, keeps panellists on point, and delivers in an authentic and conversational way.”
Rachel Newman, Event Organiser, Iris Worldwide for MINI
