Cranfield Research Insights #2: Scoping my Research - Unlocking the Circular Economy - Realising the potential of the Biological Cycle

The first year of my PhD research will be spent studying and reading, pulling together what is already known before I venture into new territory. I’m going to capture my insights in a series of short pieces shared on LinkedIn. I admit mainly this is to help my own writing and comprehension, but maybe they are helpful to others interested in the Circular Economy? I hope so and would welcome your comments, feedback, further contacts and references.

1.     Introduction

Research is an iterative process, with the first few turns of the spiral being required to ask the right question, before even trying to answer it. My professional work on the Circular Economy (CE) was first on plastics and then on sanitation, representing one project on each of the two CE cycles (technical and biological), and my resulting interest is on the balance of these two cycles. Specifically, have we got the balance fundamentally wrong, overusing the clever chemistry invented since the industrial revolution and veering away from nature’s biological processes, with serious consequences of resource depletion and pollution? That’s a huge thought, spanning multiple sectors of the economy. So this topic certainly needs that iteration to become a workable piece of research.

Here I’ll use the structure recommended by Lange and Pfarrer (2017) for articles submitted to the Academy of Management Review. In a full academic paper these five headings would be woven into the full structure, but here I’m going to use them as headings for a preliminary view of my research scope:

• Common Ground – a foundation of established knowledge that most readers would agree with.
• Complication – “the problem,” piquing the reader’s interest that the common ground may have a gap, ie a flaw in the knowledge or practice. 
• Concern – why the gap is worth exploring.
• Course of Action – what will I be doing to address the gap.
• Contribution – what difference this will make.

This short document will disappoint academics by having only a few references. But there is a reason (excuse!) for that – this is written before I start my literature review. I’m not trying at this stage fully to justify my points – just to set out the preliminary hypothesis based mainly on my own experience. The fully referenced version will follow next year.

2.     Common Ground

-       Since the industrial revolution we have created an economy which is now >90% linear (Circle Economy, 2020). This inevitably depletes finite resources and creates waste.

-       The linear economy has wider consequences, most obviously environmental damage, with arguments suggesting economic damage (essentially from the waste of resources), and with social consequences too, often resulting from the environmental or economic effects.

-       Nevertheless the linear economy is a “sticky” model, highly optimised in its own terms, and with supporting enablers including regulation, consumer expectations, and the structure of markets. All these make the CE hard to achieve at the start, with the economics looking more favourable in the medium-long term, when the benefits of scale, experience, and alignment of enablers all start to kick in.

-       The CE model embodies two cycles – technical and biological – as set out in Cradle to Cradle ((McDonough and Braungart, 2002), see my previous article in this series). Each has its own distinctive application, and the two cycles are generally best kept separate. The material types are defined by their fate – ie a biological material is one which can safely return to the biosphere, whereas a technical material cannot, and must remain in the industrial system.

3.     Complication

In a number of respects our current use of technical and biological materials does not fit the Cradle to Cradle model:

-       Use of fossil fuels

-       Inappropriate use of plastics

• for short-term applications such as single-use packaging
• in applications which intentionally involve mixing with biological materials (eg nappies, sanitary products, food packaging)
• in applications or locations where there is unlikely to be effective collection or recycling (eg out-of-home locations, small packaging components)

-       Technical materials used as additives with biological materials (eg paper, textiles), rendering them unsuitable to return to the biosphere. 

-       Use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides which deplete the soil and cause pollution.

We have in general failed to establish collection of biological waste in a form which returns nutrients to the soil. Safely managed sanitation systems collecting human waste are only 45% complete globally (UNICEF and World Health Organisation (WHO), 2019) and typically do not recover resources, while collection of other forms of biological waste is sporadic. Bizarrely, we send much biological waste to landfill, losing the nutrients and at best recovering some biogas.

This suggests that in building our industrialised society we have neglected to make full use of the biological cycle, preferring to use our recent human-invented materials in many applications, and building waste infrastructure accordingly. This research aims to evaluate that imbalance, to define the key decisions (in government, business, and individual citizens) that would drive a rebalancing of resource use, and to propose how such decisions might be brought about.

4.     Concern

In additional to the general concern with the linear economy (with its depletion of resources, generation of waste, and resulting environmental, social, and economic problems) and resulting desire to achieve a Circular Economy, there are specific concerns associated with an imbalance between technical and biological cycles:

-       The uses of plastics listed above, and the addition of technical additives to biological materials such as timber and cotton, are inappropriate precisely because recycling or re-use options are unlikely to be realised in full. Those last three words must ultimately be taken to mean that almost all the material is recovered from almost all people, in almost all geographies and situations, and is returned to use at the same quality (as opposed to being downcycled). While improvements in re-use and recycling are welcome in themselves, we need to be realistic. This ultimate vision is so far from being the current situation (eg 98% of plastic packaging is made from virgin materials – (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2016)) that it seems implausible that it will be achieved by incremental improvement to waste collection and processing, while keeping the material choices essentially unchanged. High-technology approaches to recycling may work in a specific place and time, but can they be deployed in all the locations, globally, where such consumer products are sold, and then continue to adapt as product innovation continues? Arguably more likely the outcome will be continuing leakage into the environment and/or extensive use of waste incineration, which may recover energy but destroys nutrients and renders plastic as in effect an (inefficient) fossil fuel (BBC, 2018)

If suitable biological materials were used instead, together with effective biological waste collection, the flexibility of biological decay processes could allow effective nutrient recovery, and in the worst case such items could be benign if they fall into the environment. More enlightened consumer goods organisations already recognise the future of packaging and plastic consumer products lies in a combination of re-use, recycling, and composting (Unilever plc, no date), (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2020) – this is about realising that third element.

-       Fertiliser and pesticide use is being challenged in the drive for sustainable agriculture, but if part of the solution is greater use of organic fertiliser, this will need recovery of large quantities of biological nutrients, perhaps requiring new/additional sources not just from within agriculture but from food waste, human waste, and other human uses of biological materials.

-       Energy from biological waste releases carbon recently absorbed from the atmosphere, unlike burning of fossil-based plastic. So a side-effect of a more complete biological cycle is an additional source of genuinely renewable energy.

-       Sanitation implemented as a hygiene service, using systems such as sewers and pit latrines, has great value in terms of health but is typically a linear system which does not recover resources. In many cases it has proved too expensive and/or has been implemented without effective treatment, simply moving waste some distance away from the user. Built as part of a resource recovering system, there is potentially a source of revenue from resource recovery, reducing the net cost, and a built-in incentive to ensure full treatment.

Taken together, these concerns are most obviously about pollution (plastic waste, carbon emissions, fertiliser and pesticides, human waste). This has social consequences in terms of health, with consequent economic costs, and ultimately there are clean-up costs if the pollution is to be reduced, for example in remediating landfill sites or ocean plastics accumulation. Solving the pollution questions may be in part about eliminating pollutants with effective treatment, and in part about going back to choices and sources of raw materials, and using less contaminating materials in the first place. These represent inevitable dilemmas as we move away from a linear culture where waste can go “away,” to a circular culture which acknowledges our finite planet, where there is no away, and instead there are hard choices to be made about the chemicals we want to circulate through society. Many current concerns about the use of circular biological systems relate to contaminants like metals and pharmaceuticals – the question may be are these inevitably part of biological resource flows?

The points are also connected around the key topic of soil health, vital for food supplies, which could potentially be improved with effective recovery of biological waste materials and less use of chemicals. This is an increasingly relevant consideration in the face of climate change, since healthy soil retains water better, coping better with more intense rainfall, and requiring less use of scarce water for irrigation.

Climate change mitigation is the third dimension. The more-biological system produces renewable energy and reduces carbon-intensive fertiliser use, which is promising, but there is a subtle balance of energy use and carbon emissions which needs Life-Cycle Analysis to be properly understood.

There is similarly a balance of land use to be considered. Can greater use of biological materials for non-food uses, and less use of fertilisers and pesticides, be reconciled with available land area?

The final concern is that these issues are seldom considered together. Of course it is appealing to simplify this huge puzzle by dealing individually with each aspect, considering say sustainable agriculture, or renewable energy – huge topics in themselves. But there are at least two reasons to consider them also as a joined-up problem:

-       The resource flows may be separate in production processes, but may come together in a single system for collecting biological waste, treating it and returning it to the soil. This is unlikely to be considered sector by sector, yet its absence may hinder all sectors. Those developing compostable packaging, say, are stymied by tbe absence of compostable waste collection. The challenges in achieving universal sanitation may also demonstrate that considering just one biological waste stream in isolation hinders both efficiency and effectiveness.

-       A wider adoption of biological solutions sits within a cultural context which certainly influences consumer preferences and probably institutional decision making. If we are to change the unhelpful expectation that healthy products are “new,” pristine, sanitised, regular-shaped, and plastic-wrapped, there may need to be a broad cross-sectoral effort to rebuild humans’ confidence in nature and more natural products and processes – overcoming the “yuk factor.”

All these questions are easily deflected by an understandable focus on the legacy of current linear practices, where the materials and products in use today are predominantly designed without adequate consideration of the after-use phase. The waste sector, in particular, has developed essentially to catch and make safe this “undesigned” flow of resources, and this will be a requirement for many years to come. However the Circular Economy in general, and specifically this research, looks beyond this, daring to envisage a set of resource flows which avoid the above concerns, by design, and (often) at source.

5.     Course of Action

The first year of the research will comprise four elements:

a)    Literature review across the multiple domains covered by the points above, providing substantiation of the arguments while introducing key feasibility questions, and areas of challenge and dispute.

b)    Quantification of the overall system change envisaged. This will be in terms of nutrient flows and stocks, including soil health, together with land use and carbon emissions. Compiling this information from literature will probably leave some gaps and inconsistencies, but this is intended only as a preliminary indication that the overall hypothesis makes sense. Other elements (eg pollution consequences, health benefits, climate change adaptation) will be captured as examples rather than being quantified overall.

c)     Identification of the gaps in data and knowledge from a) and b).

d)    Identification of the key decision points which would underpin a shift towards more comprehensive use of the biological cycle. This is likely to be a combination of:

-       Government policy changes, in overall regulation of the resource systems and specifically in designing waste infrastructure 

-       Business changes, in design of consumer products, and in agricultural practices

-       Consumer changes, including reactions to products of different types, both in use and in segregating the resulting waste.

The remaining three years of the project will be spent addressing c) and d) with one or more detailed pieces of research. So the conclusions of the first year’s work will comprise the outcomes of a) - d) above, definition of the research questions arising from c) and d), and the plan for carrying out the research.

6.     Contribution

Ultimately the desired impact is to realise the shift to more balanced use of the technical and biological cycles in which the Circular Economy can operate most effectively. This research will contribute to that goal in two ways:

-       Articulating the greater opportunity represented by considering this as a single problem, rather than pursuing separate and somewhat unconnected approaches to sustainable agriculture and food, sustainable consumer products, textiles, and paper, sanitation, and renewable energy.

-       Providing specific information and methods, in a variety of formats, which will enable the key decisions to be made which would drive this change.

References

BBC (2018) “Should we burn or bury waste plastic?,” BBC News - Science and Environment, 20 February. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43120041 (Accessed: November 19, 2020).

Circle Economy (2020) Our World is Only 8.6% Circular, Circularity Gap Report Launch. Available at: https://www.circle-economy.com/news/our-world-is-now-only-8-6-circular (Accessed: November 19, 2020).

Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2016) The New Plastics Economy Rethinking the Future of Plastics. Available at: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/The-New-Plastics-Economy-Rethinking-the-Future-of-Plastics.pdf (Accessed: November 19, 2020).

Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2020) The (New Plastics Economy) Global Commitment Progress Report. Available at: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/Global-Commitment-2020-Progress-Report.pdf (Accessed: November 19, 2020).

Lange, D. and Pfarrer, M. D. (2017) “Editors’ comments: Sense and structure - The core building blocks of an AMR article,” Academy of Management Review, 42(3), pp. 407–416. doi: 10.5465/amr.2016.0225.

McDonough, W. (William M. & P. and Braungart, M. (EPEA) (2002) Cradle to Cradle. North Point Press.

UNICEF and World Health Organisation (WHO) (2019) Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene I 2000-2017. New York. Available at: https://washdata.org/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2019-07/jmp-2019-wash-households.pdf (Accessed: November 19, 2020).

Unilever plc (no date) Rethinking plastic packaging – towards a circular economy. Available at: https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/reducing-environmental-impact/waste-and-packaging/rethinking-plastic-packaging/ (Accessed: November 19, 2020).