How can the 'circular' contributions and impact of makerspaces be measured and communicated?
A traditional metric and performance indicator in the waste and recycling industry is to measure waste to landfill, or materials diverted for recycling.
But how do we keep track of a variety of materials that have been reused, such as offcuts or salvaged/donated? And is it possible to measure avoided consumption?
How do we define avoided consumption, and differentiate it from materials that displace consumption through repair, reuse, remanufacturing?
Here is a proposed measurement framework I developed in 2020-21 for Makerspace Adelaide, and to which others have contributed ideas and proposals - it is still a work in process, and has not been tested:
The framework is based on levels of advancement in relation to a series of elements based on the materials hierarchy - it sets out criteria and associated metrics for assessing if criteria have been met, across a spectrum of development, from just starting out to leading edge.
The framework also includes measures based on economic and social impact:
The criteria and metrics could be reordered or be made more nuanced; they may also not be easy to collect or assess; and they require procedures and systems to be established to track.
This information could be bundled into visual form in a 'sunburst' or 'radar' chart, similar to this example from the Australian Packaging Covenant:
