Design That Matters: Wayne Hemingway on Sustainability, Community & Creativity by HemingwayDesign

At IMPACT25, designer and social entrepreneur Wayne Hemingway delivered an inspiring keynote exploring how sustainability and design can intersect to reduce environmental impact, revitalise communities, and create places with lasting social value.

Framing sustainability as a holistic and human-centred challenge, Hemingway shared how design should go beyond aesthetics—improving lives, reducing waste, and embedding environmental and social responsibility. He emphasised his lifelong belief that “design is about improving things that matter,” shaped by a childhood grounded in “sensible thrift” and a make-do-and-mend ethos.

Hemingway traced his journey from co-founding Red or Dead—a purpose-driven fashion brand rooted in activism and ethical production—to leading place-based regeneration projects across the UK with his wife Gerardine as HemingwayDesign. These projects, such as Staiths South Bank, Lowestoft Seafront, Kidderminster Town Centre, and Andover, have prioritised circularity, localism, and cultural relevance while creating accessible, climate-resilient urban environments.

His talk also highlighted creative, sustainability-first initiatives that blend reuse, storytelling, and community activation:

- Dreamland Margate: Reviving a seaside amusement park using reclaimed fairground materials.
- Festival of Thrift: A community celebration of circular living and low-impact creativity.
- Classic Car Boot Sale: A curated market for second-hand fashion, homeware, and vinyl.
- Shelter at Coal Drops Yard: A charity shop using leftover fit-out materials.Uniform design for major UK institutions such as Transport for London using waste textiles and natural fibres, avoiding plastics.
- Charity Super.Mkt a ‘charity shop department store’ that elevates the perception and accessibility of second-hand fashion. 

Key Takeaways:
- Sustainability should be accessible, engaging, and woven into daily life.
- Reuse and repurposing can elevate design while reducing environmental harm.
- Successful place-making combines creativity, community, and circular thinking.
- Design is a powerful tool for social and environmental impact when rooted in purpose.

Hemingway’s presentation was a compelling call for designers, brands, retailers and communities to lead with values and design for lasting change.