Sustainable Futures 7 (2024) 100155 Available online 14 January 2024 2666-1888/© 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Emerging materials for transition: A taxonomy proposal from a design perspective Sofia Soledad Duarte Poblete a, * , Alessia Romani a, b , Valentina Rognoli a a Design Department, Politecnico di Milano, Via Durando, Milan 20158, Italy b Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, Milan 20133, Italy A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Taxonomy Emerging materials Environmental sustainability Circularity Transition Materials design ABSTRACT In response to environmental challenges, design promotes emerging materials connected with the circular economy and environmental sustainability. However, there is confusion about their definition and contribution to sustainable design and production, showing a gap in their classification. This article proposes a taxonomy as a helpful tool to consolidate and unify terminology, definitions and general understanding of these emerging materials. An analysis of 31 real-world case studies helped outline the taxonomic proposal to formalise knowledge, fostering clarity in classifying and identifying them. The taxonomy aims to organise emerging ma- terials, generate reflections, and encourage their responsible development, diffusion, and adoption. 1. Introduction Humanity faces global challenges, including environmental prob- lems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion [1]. Existing production and consumption patterns exacerbate these challenges [2], e.g., low awareness of the life cycle and impacts of physical artefacts and goods. The design phase strongly influences the environmental impacts associated with products, services, and infra- structure [3,4]; therefore, increasing attention should be paid to product design throughout its life cycle [5,6]. In this context, adopting strategies to address and enhance Design for Sustainability (DfS) potential [7,8] assumes crucial relevance. Furthermore, envisioning design to support restoration, reconciliation, and regeneration for planetary healing be- comes essential [9]. The design discipline has developed responsible production and consumption strategies to overcome environmental issues. Over the last decade, designing for the circular economy (CE), also known as Circular Design (CD) [10] and designing for environmental sustainability [11] have grown significantly to address these concerns. CD aims to preserve economic and ecological values and protect the habitat by avoiding the take-make-waste economic model [12]. This approach is based on CE, limiting resource extraction and preserving the value of resources in the system as long as possible [13]. CD integrates closed-loop systems with systems thinking. It enables designers to adopt circular strategies and business models while addressing transitions and sociocultural dynamics in implementation [14,15]. Design for environmental sus- tainability focuses on reducing the environmental impact of products and services, facilitating the transition to more sustainable production through different levels of intervention [11]. It is recognised as part of the discipline of DfS, which identifies a theoretical framework, ranging from material and product design to the design of socio-technical sys- tems [7]. DfS and CE are closely related, as are design for environmental sus- tainability and CD. Both sub-disciplines combine different approaches, such as eco-design [16,11,7], cradle-to-cradle [17] and biomimicry [18], among others. Hence, this study considers DfS and CD practices complementary approaches to reconcile a transition towards responsible design and production with low environmental impact. 1.1. Materials design theoretical background Materials design is a recognised and evolving area of design. It has developed from early studies and practices related to the expressive- sensory qualities of materials and their perception [19] and symbolic meaning [20,21]. Materials design has been intertwined with the concept of Materials Experience [22,23] and the self-production practices of DIY-materials [24–26]. This field constantly evolves, especially in the last decade, incorporating sustainability and circularity principles [27, 28,23,29–31]. However, materials design is still an emerging domain. It began to be * Corresponding author. E-mail address: sofiasoledad.duarte@polimi.it (S.S. Duarte Poblete). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Futures journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/sustainable-futures https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sftr.2024.100155 Received 8 January 2024; Accepted 12 January 2024