Abstract
This paper explores how the ethics of care can be applied to circular product design. Although the concept of care is compatible with circular design, individualistic models of care place excessive focus on single actors, such as designers, while approaches of shared or collective care risk the diffusion of responsibility, making it unclear who should act in order for certain needs to be met. These approaches fail to adequately address three interrelated problems: moral distance, influence (or lack thereof), and the diffusion of responsibility. Consequently, this paper introduces the concept of distributed care, an approach that focuses on assigning care responsibilities to stakeholders in a value chain according to their competence and sphere of influence. Ultimately, this paper argues that achieving a truly sustainable and ethical circular economy requires a (fair) distribution of care among all stakeholders in a value chain.
Keywords
circular design, sustainability, care ethics, ethics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1317
Citation
Krstulović, I. (2026) The fair share of care: A distributed care account of circular design, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1317
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
The fair share of care: A distributed care account of circular design
This paper explores how the ethics of care can be applied to circular product design. Although the concept of care is compatible with circular design, individualistic models of care place excessive focus on single actors, such as designers, while approaches of shared or collective care risk the diffusion of responsibility, making it unclear who should act in order for certain needs to be met. These approaches fail to adequately address three interrelated problems: moral distance, influence (or lack thereof), and the diffusion of responsibility. Consequently, this paper introduces the concept of distributed care, an approach that focuses on assigning care responsibilities to stakeholders in a value chain according to their competence and sphere of influence. Ultimately, this paper argues that achieving a truly sustainable and ethical circular economy requires a (fair) distribution of care among all stakeholders in a value chain.