How to cultivate sustainable developments in makerspaces

Report of the the Workshop on Makerspaces and Sustainable Development, which took place in the Machines Room, a makerspace in London, on October 26-27 2015 that was funded by the Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand (CIED) and co-organised with the STEPS Centre. It was held as part of a research project on Grassroots Innovation in Low Energy Digital Fabrication. The workshop was motivated by the following questions:

• How can makerspaces sustain and expand their commitment to sustainable developments?
• Should sustainability initiatives scale-up or circulate more widely, and if so, how can they retain their core aims when moving beyond prototyping?
• How can makerspaces work with others to generate conditions for sustainable developments in the wider world?

Citation

Smith, A. and Light, A. (2016) How to cultivate sustainable developments in makerspaces, Brighton, STEPS Centre, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.