This event brings together academics who work on the Materials and Innovative Manufacturing Global Research Priorities to explore questions and prompt debate about ‘Sustainable Luxury’. Is luxury sustainable? Or does luxury necessarily imply exclusivity and items made from materials of limited supply?
There is a perception that luxury items are made from ‘traditional’ materials (wood, metal, stone); we can now make equivalent and better performing substitutes from sustainable sources but are they ‘acceptable’? Anyone for synthetic diamonds, cultured pearls or a plastic beer glass?
Advances in technology lead to faster, smaller, more powerful and efficient devices, spreading availability to the masses while generating wealth and employment. But what becomes of the previous generation of devices now redundant and discarded? And why do we need to keep up-dating to the latest version – function or fashion?
Enormous savings in natural resources can be made by reusing and recycling materials. So if you are happy to sit on a park bench made from recycled bottles would you drive a car powered by used cooking oil or take a tablet made from recycled waste?
 

The Ideas Café is an interactive event, bringing together researchers from across the University with a wide audience of staff, students, alumni and members of the local community.

After a series of short talks on the topic of Sustainable Luxury, you will have a chance to discuss the theme with those around you, to ask the panel questions, engage in the general debate and enjoy a buffet dinner and glass of wine.

Materials and Innovative Manufacturing are two of Warwick's Global Research Priorities (GRPs). The GRPs programme provides a focus for the University’s multidisciplinary research in key areas of international significance. From food to sustainable cities, from energy to innovative manufacturing, the GRPs provide a platform from which Warwick can make a globally distinctive contribution. By supporting cross-departmental collaboration and facilitating University-wide interaction in a range of subject areas, the programme enables researchers to work together across departmental and disciplinary boundaries, thereby responding through research to global challenges.

The session will be chaired by Professor Tim Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Science, Engineering and Medicine). Dr Andrew Clark, Chemistry, Dr Alan Chalmers and Claudia Newton, WMG, and Dr Mark Newton, Physics, will each give a presentation on their interest and research strand around the topic of 'Sustainable Luxury'.

Professor Tim Jones
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Science, Engineering and Medicine)

Dr. Andrew Clark
Chemistry

Topic: Wealth from Waste and wealth from the sea, examples of material feedstocks coming from waste streams and renewable sources.

Professor Alan Chalmers
WMG

Topic: How rapid pace of technological developments leads to obsolescence of devices and “waste” of materials, with examples from TV technology changing in quick succession through CRT-plasma-LCD-LED.

Claudia Newton
WMG

Topic: Integrating consumer research into the luxury design process in order to mitigate some of the risk associated with sustainable products.

Professor Mark Newton
Physics

Topic: Diamond –unsustainable luxury or synthetic material of the future?