Work With Purpose: What Secrid’s Social Production Model Reveals About Design’s Role in Society
When we talk about design’s capacity to shape the world, we often focus on what it can create: products, systems, solutions. But it’s just as important to consider how and with whom that creation takes place.
Design plays a prominent role in society. It is embedded in relationships, structures, and choices, and those choices reveal what (and who) is valued. Increasingly, there is a call to recognise production not only as an economic activity but as a social one—a site where inclusion, justice, and dignity can either be suppressed or cultivated.
Our friends at Secrid — a Dutch company, perhaps best known for their sleek cardholders — are demonstrating what it means to embed care and inclusion into the everyday process of product development. Their ongoing collaboration with social workplaces across the Netherlands offers a lens into what production can look like when people, not just profits, are placed at the centre.
Rethinking Value Through the Act of Making
Production is often outsourced to distant places where labour is cheap and conditions remain out of sight. While efficient on paper, this model can come at a high social and environmental cost. Secrid offers a grounded alternative — one rooted in proximity, transparency, and care. By assembling products in Dutch social workplaces, they invite us to rethink not just how we make, but where and with whom.
In traditional manufacturing, productivity is often tied to speed and scale. Social workspaces — such as DZB Leiden, Werkse!, and Spaarne Werkt — offer a more human-centred approach, creating meaningful roles for people excluded from the labour market. Here, values like equity, dignity, and purpose guide the process.
Secrid’s model reshapes production to fit people, not the other way around. It redefines productivity and shows how design can unlock talent, foster inclusion, and build resilience — making care a strategic strength, not just an ethical stance.
Design as Relationship
Design is often framed as a creative act, but it’s also a relational one. It’s about shaping interactions, conditions, and systems. By working with social workplaces as long-term partners — not as outsourced labour, but as co-producers, like What Design Can Do, Secrid invites us to see design as a force for good.
The companies that succeed in this space are those willing to invest deeply: to visit frequently, to listen closely, to adjust their processes in response to real feedback. When companies commit to building thoughtful processes together, both partners grow stronger — creating not just better products, but deeper, more resilient collaborations.
The relationships built through this work aren’t transactional. They’re rooted in mutual respect, tailored support, and the belief that everyone has something to contribute.
Shifting the Brief
For designers and businesses alike, Secrid’s approach offers a reorientation. Instead of asking, “How do we make this faster or cheaper?”, the brief becomes, “How do we make this more inclusive, more just, more human?”
There’s no single answer — and that’s the point. The work of inclusion is ongoing. It asks for constant attention, adaptation, and a willingness to let go of convenience in favor of connection. These factors don’t slow things down; they stabilise and enrich them. The result is not only a stronger product, but a stronger workplace.
Through this way, inclusion becomes a strategic strength. Local assembly through social workplaces has made Secrid’s supply chain more resilient to international disruptions. It has allowed the company to maintain consistent quality while avoiding some of the vulnerabilities that come with global outsourcing. This isn’t just ethically sound — it’s operationally effective, a win-win for business and society.
Toward an Ethic of Production
None of this is simple, and Secrid would be the first to admit it’s a work in progress. But that’s precisely what makes it valuable. It’s a living example of what it means to align business practices with broader social goals. It shows that design doesn’t have to choose between quality and care — it can pursue both.
For designers, makers, and business leaders, it opens up a different kind of design brief: how do we design processes that allow more people to belong? How do we account for care, not just cost?
In a landscape driven by scale and speed, Secrid is showing another way. One where design is not just a tool for problem-solving, but a practice of solidarity, belonging, and shared purpose.
‘Common Good’
Secrid’s innovative approach is featured in the BBC StoryWorks x B Lab series “Common Good,” which highlights companies integrating social and environmental considerations into their business practices. The video, part of this campaign, emphasizes Secrid’s dedication to meaningful employment and showcases how collaboration with sheltered workshops creates positive social impact, inspiring businesses globally to pursue similar initiatives. See Secrid’s chapter at the BBC website.
___________
This story is part of What Design Can Do’s collaboration with Secrid as part of the WDCD Accelerator.