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Kieran Devlin is a visionary entrepreneur, award-winning sustainable designer, and speaker on circular design. In 2019, he founded Revive Innovations, a sustainable design company at the forefront of introducing circular economy products and materials into worldwide industries.
He is most known for creating beautiful and sustainably responsible products from recycled post-consumer wastes. His formative project RE-CD is a circular economy infrastructure that collects and transforms CDs bound for landfill into eye-catching, recyclable solid sheets. This venture began as an experimental design project at the University of the West of England (UWE) and has grown into a pioneering enterprise that has already given new purpose to over 400,000 discs.
Kieran’s approach to design is driven by his passion for sustainable thinking and his desire to educate the public about the benefits of circular design. His innovative use of waste materials and commitment to circular economy principles have positioned him as a notable figure in the field of sustainable design.
Fuelled by this passion for circularity and innovation, Kieran is on a mission to reframe our perceptions of waste and advance sustainable technologies.
Kieran Devlin started Revive Innovations to address the environmental impact of waste. Kieran researched and observed that as streaming services have rendered CDs nearly obsolete, millions of discs are discarded annually. CDs can take over a million years to decompose in landfills; Revive Innovations repurposes these discs, turning them into valuable products.
Through experimental design, he developed a processing method that collects, granulates, and remelts these CDs into themselves, without any additives; producing unique composite sheets made from 100% recycled CDs.
His RE-CD project improves CD recycling infrastructure for our communities, whilst creating beautiful circular products. In 2023, Kieran and Revive Innovations were featured at Milan Design Week, showcasing a sustainable rocking chair made from 2,000 discarded CDs. The process and infrastructure that Kieran has developed is dynamic, inclusive & versatile, with the potential to be scaled and applied over many types of waste, improving our sustainable potential.
Kieran has built Revive with sustainability at its core; the business is centered around three key sustainable pillars: Transparency, Quality & Circularity. Kieran says that these principles enable “honest, responsible decision making throughout every stage of their processing.”
RE-CD is a fantastic example of this ethos in practice, made entirely from recycled waste CDs; it is free of resin and binders, meaning that it can be repurposed again and again into new products at the end of its lifecycle.
Through their design, Revive is pushing the boundaries for sustainable products & materials, challenging perceptions of lower quality and desirability. The company’s current range includes furniture, accessories, and other bespoke items made from recycled CDs and other materials.
Revive Founder, Kieran Devlin explaining the sustainable rocking chair design at Milan Design Week. Photo Credit: Isola Design
In 2019, while at UWE, Kieran received the Best in Show award for Product Design Technology. A year later, in his early twenties, he received the People’s Prize from Blue Patch, celebrating small businesses and social enterprises in sustainability. The same year, Revive also came runner-up in the Circular Economy Award.
In 2021, Kieran was awarded a UK Young Innovators Award from InnovateUK and the Prince’s Trust, recognizing creative and groundbreaking business ideas.
In a fusion of circular economy design and automotive innovation, Revive’s RE-CD material has been included in Chrysler’s Halcyon concept car. This concept car embodies Chrysler’s commitment to a fully electrified future, blending sustainability-driven design with futuristic technology. Revive’s RE-CD material is featured six times throughout the interior, including the logo detail on the steering wheel, seats, and door sills.
With over 400,000 recycled CDs already diverted from landfills, the RE-CD project’s impact is significant. This partnership with Chrysler marks a milestone, showcasing the versatility and potential of RE-CD in transforming products and environments across various industries.
As the world moves towards a more sustainable future, partnerships like this demonstrate the power of creativity and collaboration in driving meaningful change.