The Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma (b.1980) approaches the design profession as a process of research to better understand and influence industry to make better choices around manufacturing and sustainability. Born in Utrecht, she studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven and graduated in 2003. Meindertsma’s first work was called Checked Baggage (2004), a project focused on her purchase of a container filled with a week's worth of objects confiscated at security checkpoints in Schiphol Airport. She meticulously categorised and photographed all 3,267 items. Her award-winning book PIG 05049 (2007) documented all the products made from a single pig and explored the connection between everyday products and their often unexpected origins, revealing a network of connections between the source (the pig) and the consumer that have become increasingly invisible. Commenting on her practice, Meinderstma explains, 'I think that as a designer nowadays we should not think we are all making the antiques of the future. We should create products that can be part of a circular system and are designed considering what material goes into the product and what it leaves behind after use.'

Her Flax chair is another example of her research-based approach and a desire to work with local materials. It is the result of the Flax Project that Meinderstma began in 2010 when she purchased the entire harvest (10,000 kilos) of flax from a Dutch flax farm, to better understand the dwindling European flax industry. Flax is still grown in western Europe with 90% of the crop exported to China.

This is the first research project that Meinderstma has undertaken resulting in a product that can be manufactured at scale. The chair is made from biodegradable flax fibres combined with polylactic acid (PLA), a bioplastic made from sugar cane or corn starch and its shallow seat is produced from a single panel, cut from one piece of the composite and pressed in a mould. The remaining material is divided and folded to form the V-shaped front and back legs, meaning that no composite is left over or wasted and only two screws are used. The chair can be shredded and repressed meaning that it has the potential to be a circular economy product. The Flax chair won in the Dutch Design Awards' Product category and was also the recipient of the Future Award (2016).

Founded in 1932, Enkev is a Dutch company that specialises in the production of natural fibres. The business makes filling and covering materials for the mattress and furniture industry and also innovates in the packaging field. They are specialists in coconut fibre, flax, hemp and different animal hair such as horsehair, wool and alpaca.

Label/Breed is a design consultancy based in Amsterdam that was established in 2015 to enable innovative development of sustainable design objects by establishing connections between manufacturers, material specialists and designers.