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What RED is

Do not recycle.
Regenerate.

RED is an approach before it is a material, a method before it is a product. Ten points that define who can call themselves part of the movement.

  • RED is researching and developing ways to protect the environment.
  • RED is recovering what we waste.
  • RED is making useful what has become useless.
  • RED is turning the flaw into singularity.
  • RED is giving value to what has none.
  • RED is regenerating.
  • RED is manifold usefulness.
  • RED is making without producing.
  • RED is originality.
  • RED is creativity in defence of the environment.

Philosophy

The ten points

  1. It goes beyond the idea of eco-sustainability.
  2. It does not call for new materials to be manufactured for new so-called eco-sustainable objects: RED makes new objects without producing anything.
  3. It turns waste, offcuts and industrial rejects into objects that are useful once more.
  4. It is not recycling, but regenerating usefulness in what we consider no longer useful.
  5. At the heart of its philosophy are not new materials, nor new manufacturing processes, but a new creative approach.
  6. It rests not only on the idea of sustainable productivity, but on that of sustainable creativity.
  7. It reduces waste, fosters creativity and gives value to craftsmanship of quality.
  8. It calls not merely for reuse and recovery, but for genuine regeneration.
  9. It turns an environmental problem into an opportunity that benefits and protects the environment itself.
  10. It can be applied to design, art, architecture and craftsmanship, and it therefore stands as a recognition of both creativity and environmental awareness.

The criterion

How a RED work is recognised

Three questions the council asks of every application:

  1. Is at least half the material salvaged?
    This is the movement’s threshold: in the finished work, at least half the material must come from waste, industrial rejects or discarded objects. It need not reach a hundred per cent — better if it does, but new material where it is genuinely needed excludes no one. The proportion is judged in substance, not on a scale: what matters is that salvage is the basis of the work, not a finishing touch.
  2. Is the usefulness new?
    Reusing the same thing in a similar way is not enough. RED asks that a function or a meaning be born that was not there before.
  3. Is there a creative act?
    The value lies not in the salvaged material but in the approach that transforms it. Without that, it is recycling, not regeneration.

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