ABSTRACT
The environmental damage caused by over-extraction of materials for human production-to-consumption systems has led to serious concerns about the Earth’s carrying capacity, and highlighted the importance of renewable materials. Bio-based materials are more energy-efficient than most commonly recycled materials because their production generally requires less energy. An important rule of thumb in sustainability design is to use renewable input materials from the biosphere – such as wood, cotton, linen, hemp and bamboo. Renewable resources from the biosphere have traditionally been used as input materials for craft-based production-to-consumption systems around the world, due their easy availability in the natural environment. Post-industrialization, craft-based production-to-consumption systems – and the craftspeople they encompass – are endangered with the influx of industrial products into their traditionally closed economies. This is a spin-off of the industrial and information revolutions, each of which has impacted access and reorganized economic activity across the world.
