Why Circularity-by-Design and Systemic Efficiency in Industry are essential to achieving resilience and net-zero goals across all Sectors
Stefan M. Buettner
Award winning Change Leader for Industrial Decarbonisation | Director Global Strategy & Impact bei Institute for Energy Efficiency in Production (EEP) | Chair UN ECE Task Force Industrial Energy Efficiency
Across sectors such as mobility, housing, infrastructure, and industry, the race to meet climate goals, manage access to resources & personnel, and enhance resilience while remaining cost-competitive is intensifying. Industries are increasingly pressured by rising costs, raw material or intermediate-product shortages, and the need to reduce environmental footprints. By embedding systemic efficiency and circularity-by-design into their operations, businesses can tackle these issues head-on, paving the way for improved resilience, cost-competitiveness, and sustainability.
This article explores how product design decisions—influencing energy, resource use, emissions, and waste—affect resilience and competitiveness across all sectors. With circular economy principles, systemic efficiency, and innovations in critical raw material management, sectors like automotive, construction, and flooring and others in manufacturing are already benefiting from these approaches, that are often facilitated by digital innovations.
Systemic Efficiency and the Power of Product Design
Systemic efficiency is about optimizing the entire system. In this use-case the entire value chain—from material sourcing and production to product use and end-of-life management. However, the key realization is that product design decisions have a profound impact on how energy, resources, water, and waste are managed. By integrating circularity into product design, industries can create products that are easier to repair, reuse, and recycle. This, in turn, reduces dependence on scarce, pricy, hard to access or geopolitically sensitive materials, making supply chains more resilient and products more sustainable (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic or the gas crisis have shown vulnerability of supply chains in serveral sectors).
Moreover, for everything that exists (or is available on shelves, in the catalogue or being manufactured) across all sectors—whether it be mobility, housing, infrastructure, industry, or individual end-use sectors' products and equipment of all shapes and forms— we can only try to use, power, repair and as responsibly as possible and retrofit where viable.
Or simply put: making the best of whats there as it is there already.
To maintine the chance and work towards meeting the Paris climate goals and improve resilience, however, it is crucial we urgently inspire, enable, and empower manufacturers to embed circularity-by-design into their thinking, ensuring that new products — that is their choice of materials, their sourcing, transport, energy and resource efficiency, the production processes and energy carriers used, the operational energy and resource consumption, repairability and recyclability —are economically viable and net-zero compatible from the outset.
Or simply put: clever product design choices are pre-requisite to maintain chance of meeting our goals and mastering our challenges.
For more insights on how systemic efficiency helps achieve decarbonization goals, visit:
Circularity-by-Design: Reducing Dependencies and Building Resilience
The availability of critical raw materials varies across sectors, and the challenge lies not just in the natural availability but also in the access and processing capabilities. Circularity-by-design allows companies to reduce their dependence on hard-to-access (or scarce or pricy) materials by designing products that are easier to disassemble and reprocess, using recycled or locally sourced materials. This shift strengthens supply chains, reduces risks, and cuts costs.
Additionally, designing for remanufacturing, recycling, and reuse allows industries to capture value from products that have reached the end of their life. This effort minimizes the need for virgin materials and promotes sustainability across the board.
For further exploration of critical raw materials and circular economy principles, check out:
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Innovation in Action: Flooring, Automotive, and Construction
Innovation plays a crucial role in turning these principles into practice. Gritli Heitbrink and her team at Interface have demonstrated how flooring products can dramatically increase their recycled content without sacrificing quality. Their approach not only reduces the company's environmental impact but also ensures resource resilience, proving that circularity can be both sustainable and economically viable.
In the automotive sector, Markus Wagner of Circular Economy Solutions GmbH (C-ECO) has led efforts to drive remanufacturing and material circularity, allowing companies to reuse high-quality components and minimize their need for new materials. This practice significantly enhances resource management and ensures the resilience of supply chains.
Lewin Fricke and his team at TRIQBRIQ AG have taken circularity even further by developing a process to turn low-quality or scrap wood into high-quality construction materials without glues or binders. Their container-based, mobile production units are powered by local electricity, reducing the need for far-reaching supply chains and enhancing resource accessibility.
Join the Conversation – October 10th Bi-monthly Open Discussion Forum
On October 10th, at 14:00-16:00 CEST/Geneva time the UNECE Task Force on Industrial Energy Efficiency will host a Bi-monthly Open Discussion Forum to explore how circularity, systemic efficiency, and critical raw material management can drive resilience and sustainability. Experts from various sectors will share their insights, including:
?? Register here for the event: https://t.ly/VKCdu - Find out more about it here.
?? This event will provide an opportunity to hear firsthand from experts and ask questions in real time. Whether you're involved in manufacturing, sustainability, circular economy, or resource management, this is a chance to learn how these principles can be applied across industries to build more resilient, sustainable operations.
Conclusion: A Call to Action
Circularity-by-design and systemic efficiency are essential for creating products that are not only sustainable but also cost-effective and resilient. By focusing on product design, repairability, and recycling, industries can improve their market position, reduce their environmental footprint, and ensure a sustainable future. These principles are key to building resilience in a world where resources are increasingly scarce and environmental pressures are mounting.
For more insights into these critical areas of sustainability and resilience, explore the following resources:
?? Don’t miss out – join us on October 10th! Register here: https://t.ly/VKCdu
#CircularEconomy #SystemicEfficiency #Resilience #Decarbonization #CriticalRawMaterials #Sustainability #Innovation #ResourceManagement #Manufacturing #NetZero #SmartTransition #EnergyEfficiency.
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Thanks for the insights and inspiration to: UNECE Sustainable Energy - UNECE Innovation and Competitiveness Policies (ICP) - UN-ECE Transformative Innovation Network (ETIN) - Fraunhofer IPA - University of Stuttgart - Umwelttechnik BW - Universit?t Bayreuth - Fraunhofer IAO - Stefan M. Buettner, Karen Hangh?j, Elisabeth Türk, Immanuela Badde, Mikael Román, Julian Grosse Erdmann, Peter C. Evans, PhD, Steffen Kiemel, Igor Litvinyuk, Jürgen Pfitzer, Reinhard Schneider, Jonas Umgelter, Gritli Heitbrink, Markus Wagner, Lewin Fricke, Nils R?denbeck, Interface, Circular Economy Solutions GmbH (C-ECO), TRIQBRIQ and many more.