Ragna Sara Jónsdóttir is the founder and creative director of FÓLK Reykjavík, a brand she launched in 2017 with a clear mission: to bring sustainable design, circular economy principles, and production transparency into the world of interior and product design.
She holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Iceland and a Master’s degree in International Business from Copenhagen Business School.
Her work focuses on circular processes — reusing or recycling materials, creating long-lasting products, and ensuring that consumers understand the environmental and social impact of what they buy.
FÓLK Reykjavík integrates life cycle assessments (LCA) into its design process and is committed to developing objects that are both durable and reusable.
Jónsdóttir has gained recognition in the Icelandic media, including outlets such as Morgunblaðið, where she has shared her vision for blending sustainability, functionality, and aesthetic innovation.
How would you define your approach to circular economy when applied to industrial and domestic design?
The main reason we work with industrial and post-consumer waste and turn it into designs is because there is a lot of it. Natural resources like stone, metals and water are becoming scarce and it will become more scarce as the years will evolve. Then we need to look at other resources. We can still create beautiful things, apply nice designs and art and allow it to be creative.
We need to look for other alternatives of material that have abundance and that is waste actually. And it doesn’t have to be waste, it can be used for many things we have found out.
We look for waste in different industries. We have worked with the automobile industries. We have taken airbags from cars and turned them into pillows. We have used filling from an outdoor clothing manufacturer to fill the pillows. So they are made from 100% waste. We have taken glass shards, like broken glass from glass factories and turned them into beautiful vases.
And we also used waste energy for that, where the energy is being evaporated from a landfill where waste is decomposing. So there’s waste and energy to be found in many more places than we think.
We have also worked in nearby country Portugal, where we work with stone suppliers who have a lot of leftover or off-cut stone, which they don’t intend to use. So we design products from the sizes that fit into new designs.
There are many ways to reuse materials in responsible ways and make them attractive to the consumer.
Do you consider it essential to carry out an educational effort in order to reach the consumer?
Yes. We are constantly trying to grab the consumer’s attention. We of course want them to know that buying, like for example, our product and your product, is a win-win situation. You decrease the waste, you use little energy to turn it into something else, something new.
So we are constantly discovering something new, something to learn about how the consumer reacts and how they make decisions. Because today, even though a lot of people are aware of environmental problems, they may not necessarily act when they are purchasing things. So we want to transform this.
We are very grateful that you considered RiceTab and showed interest in our product. What caught your attention? What was it about RiceTab that led you to consider using it in your designs?
I was lucky to find you online when you had exactly a product ready to market, you know, so the timing was perfect. I was looking for an alternative material because I wanted to make shelves, and the material that I was looking to use was wood. We don’t want to waste the wood, you know, but we also want to make products that are available at the time when the consumer needs them.
And that’s why RiceTab is perfect as a material, because here we don’t create waste, we use agricultural waste to make the product. And this is a great opportunity for all of us to make use of this waste that otherwise wouldn’t be used.
Now that you have seen our production process first-hand, what surprised you the most about the way we produce the boards?
I am really fascinated about the production of RiceTab because it’s a very simple production process, with minimal additives, and you can really see the waste product, the rice husks, through the production process. So that is very nice. And then I was visiting your facilities and coming to realise how many opportunities there are to create your own designs with your products, with an add-on in terms of printing or tinting or even just cutting or laser cutting or bending the material.
