Circular Econ Awards Q4: Consumerism, Obsolescence & Circular Economy?

Consumption and production are complex issues which have many causal factors that are influencing and depending on each other. This makes it often difficult to identify the real underlying issues and problems. In order for people’s and company’s behavior and thinking to change, we need to have a paradigm shift away from traditional, well established thinking patterns and ideas, towards newer, more environmental friendly ones. The underlying problems and motivators need to be identified and addressed. For example, it is currently still more profitable for many companies to produce new goods, rather than setting up a circular economy model. Also, for many items consumers currently seem to be unwilling to adopt a circular economy model since they still very much need to have the feeling that they “own” something. Due to the complexity and size of the issues, our understanding of these is constantly evolving, and today’s solutions seem to be obsolete tomorrow. Take the example of electric cars: a study by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, entitled "Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of conventional and electric vehicles”, states that electric vehicles are actually more toxic than traditional vehicles, and that the overall CO2 reduction benefits of electric vehicles are actually not clear. Also, the production of many goods is usually ignored, while the production phase can be a large contributor to the overall CO2 emission of a product. As the electricity consumption (and consequently the CO2 emissions) in the usage phase of products is reduced, the CO2 emission of the production phase actually increases in significance. They way we consume and how we produce things needs to be addressed on several layers: international, national, local and individual. Only then can there be a real and lasting change. Of course, we will make mistakes along the way, but this is the only way to force change on all actors and make the transition towards a more environmentally sustainable society.

Creating shared value and shared responsibility across the full life cycle of products and services is key to breaking the obsolescence cycle. Better design for reuse and recycling will accelerate this. For example, it is currently very easy to recycle car bodies but not their internal fittings (textiles, rubber, plastics, copper wires etc.). These are collectively recovered as unwanted shredder floc - 400,000 tonnes is landfilled every year in Australia costing many $millions. Sustainability Advantage and the University of NSW are currently collaborating through a Green Manufacturing Hub to use the plastic, rubber and fibre components from shredder floc as re-engineered composites, recover the metals and glass using green chemistry and reform the residuals into metallurgical carbon for steel making. In a brave new world, particularly with current focus on lighter and more durable vehicles, perhaps it will be a better environmental, economic and social outcome to keep cars on the road longer and replace or renew their interior fittings? Sustainability Advantage is a finalist in the Cities and Regions category of the Circulars.

With rapid innovation cycles in the technology sector, we expect the pace of product refreshes to continue to stay relatively short in the near term. Additionally, sometimes hanging on to older products may not make environmental sense given advances in energy efficiency and productivity. The key will be making it easier for customers to turn this former waste stream into an industrial input – and critical to that will be the ways that products are designed. Dell has pioneered a Design for Recyclability (DFR) approach to ensure that new products strive for modularity, clear labeling of parts, minimal use of glues or adhesives and convenient disassembly guides to support the intention that product components and plastics be reusable or recyclable. Our sustainable approach to design was recognized with ISRI’s 2014 Design for Recycling Award. Dell also received a 96% recyclability rate for our tablets and ultrabooks (per independent assessment with the IEC 62635 standard) and received a 9 out of 10 score from IFIXT for ease of recyclability of our XPS 10 tablet, making it the most recyclable tablet amongst its industry peers.

Thanks to all of you who contributed on this round. I found the inputs by far the most insightful. There are some really powerful learnings and examples in here. I may speak to the team about whether we can 'aggregate' the comments over the 5 days into some kind of write up or summary which you guys could view and sign off on. Feels like there's a lot of richness here that could benefit others and be shared through the WEF, YGL and other communities as well as to those engaged in The Circulars Awards. Comments on format or the idea always welcome. Next and final question posted.

To move towards a low carbon, resource efficient world manufacturers and designers need to be much more progressive on the use of materials and in particular the end of life process. End-of-life timing varies for every product, but as the producers of those products, it’s our job to know when that is and to have a plan for how to mitigate the impact on our environment and landfills. For beverage cans, end-of-life is less than 60 days. For tablets and smart phones, 1-2 years, and often less. For cars, about 15 years. For buildings and construction, 30 years or more on average. All of these are made with aluminum, and all are infinitely recyclable if they’re returned back into the system. Knowing these timelines, we can put measures in place according to each product, and at Novelis, we have. We are now the world’s largest recycler of aluminium a big part of which is used beverage cans, turning old cans back into new in as little as 60 days. In October 2014 we opened the world’s largest and most technologically advanced aluminum recycling center, located in Nachterstedt, Germany. With the investments made in this new facility, we’re now able to separate and recycle more types of scrap than ever before possible. Today, Novelis is the world’s largest recycler of aluminum overall. We believe all manufacturers should be taking circular economy principles into account in a similar way and investing in thinking and partnerships to fully maximise materials at the end-of-life processes that will enable old to become new again.