Meet the Judges

The judges for the Irish Business Design Challenge 2026 will be announced soon.

The DCCI Irish Business Design Challenge seeks to reward and promote sustainable Irish businesses. The Irish Business Design Challenge has a total prize fund of €50,000 to share among the winners.

Meet the Judges

Gwen Cunningham

Gwen is a designer by training who, for over a decade, has focused on driving the practical implementation of circularity across the textiles and apparel industry. From 2014 to 2024, Gwen led the Textiles Programme at Circle Economy Foundation, an impact organisation based in Amsterdam. The programme’s mission was to achieve a zero-waste textiles industry. During her time there, she led a team of circular textiles specialists and designed and delivered international, multi-stakeholder research and innovation projects in collaboration with brands, retailers, recyclers and other industry stakeholders.

Since returning to Ireland in 2020, Gwen has joined the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), where she is now Programme Director for the MA Circular by Design and leads NCAD’s Circular and Regenerative Design Hub. Her work focuses on advancing circular and regenerative design education and translating circularity into practical action across industry, developing educational and professional pathways that equip designers and industry practitioners with the knowledge and skills to drive systemic change. Since 2022, Gwen has chaired the Irish Government’s Textiles Advisory Group.

In this role, she works with DCEE and industry stakeholders to inform policy development and advance the transition to a circular textiles sector in Ireland, including contributing to the design of Ireland’s forthcoming Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme for textiles. Gwen co-founded World Circular Textiles Day and has served on the Board of the European Commission’s WORTH Partnership Project and the Circular Advisory Board of Worn Again Technologies.

Becky Earley

Becky is Professor of Circular Design Futures at UAL. She is one of the earliest advocates of circular textile design for fashion, winning her first award for recycled PET womenswear in 1999, at the Peugeot Design Awards in London. In 2007 she was nominated as a Morgan Stanley Great Briton for her contribution to sustainable fashion, after curating the Crafts Council’s Well Fashioned: Eco Style in the UK show.

After 30 years of innovation in design and practice research, she is now widely recognised as a pioneering global leader in sustainable and circular textiles for fashion, having led/cofounded three UAL research groups during this time. In 2020 she cofounded World Circular Textiles Day 2050 and now leads the global online campaign each year. Through her current roles at TCBL and DESIS, she drives research and knowledge exchange in the field of common good design through participatory approaches.