Are you ready to move beyond waste and embrace circular innovation?

According to the 2023 Circularity Gap Report, only 7.2% of the global economy is circular. The same report shows that transitioning to a more circular economy could reduce raw material use by one-third, driving us closer to improved sustainability and international climate goals.

“Despite how important it is, very few have a solid strategy for implementing circularity across their organizations,” says Dr Chris Cogswell, Global Engineering Consultant at Elsevier.

So what challenges are companies like yours confronting as they work to implement sustainable processes and reduce waste?

Our recent webinar — Reimagining Sustainability: Exploring the Circular Economy in Chemicals and Materials — brought together industry leaders from corporate, academic and government sectors to address that question and discuss sustainability and the circular economy in chemicals and materials.

Webinar participants were asked: What do you see as the biggest barrier when adopting sustainability practices in your organization? The results highlighted the multifaceted nature of these challenges:

• Cost: 44%
• Lack of technology: 23%
• Regulatory challenges: 18%
• Cultural resistance: 15%

The most prominent challenge was financial viability. Circular business models can require substantial up-front investment, making them prohibitive for many organizations. A 2019 study by Vermunt et al in the Journal of Cleaner Production shows a lack of financial resources and the unclear long-term economic case for circular models are among the most cited barriers.

The conversation among the webinar presenters circled back to the same root issue regarding financial challenges — the need for scalability and a clear direction. “There are incredible potential benefits from circularity, but you need to acknowledge that you need scale,” said Antonella Di Meo, Sustainability Program Manager on the Product & Assets Management Team of the Syensqo Specialty Polymers business. “And today, very few technologies are at the scale where they become affordable.”

“It’s important for corporations to decide the right sustainability direction,” added Dr Siming You, Senior Lecturer in the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow. “Cost is a key issue affecting the development or implementation of new technologies. Still, the earlier a company gets involved in sustainability development with the right strategy, the better advantage they will have in the long-term in the market.”

Beyond financial concerns, organizations face a range of barriers that complicate the implementation of circular practices. Cultural resistance within organizations plays a role, manifesting as hesitation from stakeholders or employees to adopt new practices. Regulatory barriers can also pose complications, making it difficult to fully implement circular solutions.

Time is another concern, pointed out Dr Nicholas Rorrer, Senior Researcher and Group Manager for Polymer Science and Engineering at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory: “There are solutions that we need today, and there are solutions that we need in five to 10 years. And how do we — as a research community, as a scientific community, as an industrial community — address these problems simultaneously?”

Despite these barriers, “good sustainability is good economics,” Dr Cogswell said. “It's taking a product that you consider a waste material, reusing it for something else, and selling it.”

Quantifying the economic impact of sustainability efforts can be complex because the process involves difficult-to-measure concepts like reduced emissions, resource conservation, and lifecycle benefits. Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) is one tool used to evaluate the environmental impact of products and services — but it’s far from perfect.

“I believe LCA for a single industry or company is good if they have sufficient data and are willing to gather more,” Dr You explains. “But in the long-term, we need a strategy in place for sharing data among different entities, institutions and organizations so that the data sharing doesn’t just benefit a small community but a larger population.”

Another notable tool is Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Technologies (GREET), developed by Argonne National Laboratory. GREET assesses various factors to help organizations evaluate the economic and environmental trade-offs of different sustainability approaches.

While environmental impacts often take center stage in discussions about circular economies, the social and human aspects are equally important.

“We have to make sure that as we develop green technologies, we’re not burden-shifting onto disadvantaged communities to mine more toxic metals or create worse working conditions,” said Dr Rorrer.

An example of this burden-shifting can be seen with first-generation biofuels, which were initially considered a climate-neutral alternative. However, LCAs later revealed that the emissions generated during production, transportation and material extraction ended up being higher than the reduction in vehicle emissions.

Organizations like Syensqo take a more holistic approach, incorporating each aspect of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles into product development.

“When we implement new materials in our portfolio, we look at the ESG implications because of what we want to be as a corporation and because we need to listen to our customers and their concerns,” Di Meo explained.

With so many challenges and barriers to circularity, can it be done successfully?

“To me, it’s finding the right application,” Dr Rorrer said. “It’s not finding circularity for the point of circularity, but it’s about finding that right space.”

One example of finding the right space to create circular solutions is plastic decking. “A lot of plastic decking comes from the grocery bags we get from the stores,” Dr Rorrer said. “So it’s a simple solution where they figured out the supply chain, taken something that has a short lifespan and upcycled it.”

One company, Trex Decking, based in Virginia, creates composite decking and outdoor products using recycled plastic film sourced from everyday waste like shopping and dry cleaning bags. According to Trex, a 20’x20’ deck contains more than 1,500 pounds of recycled and reclaimed wood and plastic film. As a result, Trex has recycled over 5.5 billion pounds of plastic film throughout its operational history.

Another example, introduced by Dr Cogswell, is Las Vegas’ buffets partnerships with local farmers. With 92 billion pounds of food going to waste in America each year, this ingenious solution turns food scraps from local casinos and restaurants into agricultural feed. Las Vegas Livestock, formerly RC Farms, has been running the recycling program since 1963 and processes 30 tons of food scraps every day.

To learn more, read the full article Beyond waste: Unlocking circular innovation in materials and chemicals on Elsevier Connect, and watch the webinar here.