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circular economies

Act Now or Swim Later - Climate Change
GovernanceOpinions

A Pledge for Every Occasion?!

Over the last couple of years a plethora of pledges has arisen in the sustainability/ESG space. The weird thing: Pledges intend to drive change the wrong way around. Commit people (read: companies) publicly, then hope they will actually move in accordance to the pledge/commitment, and then only hold them to account if and when they do not delivery. If anyone remembers that is. Do we need all these pledges? Do they really make a difference? Data says: probably not ... Shouldn't hence the Lemma simply be: Actions before words. Impact before messaging. Walk before talk. Science before marketing.
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Regrettable Substitution
Biz StrategyCircularityOpinions

Regrettable Substitution: Life is full of surprises

Reducing humanity’s footprint on this planet is a journey of decisions. Some of them tough, some of them very clear. And some of them – let’s just say: with very limited available data. The journey we’re on, is the proverbial Designer’s Paradox. More scientifically speaking of course, we are faced with the ever lasting conundrum of Regrettable Substitutions. So: Is there a best possible AND least bad option (combined) at this very moment?
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Circle - Perpetuity - Forever
CircularityDefinitions

Circularity – A puzzle piece: Not a Silver Bullet, not a Panacea

It is quite astonishing: all the different contexts that the term ‘circularity’ or ‘circular economy’ is being used. They key point mostly is of course the waste reduction promises inherent in the term, and the subsequent lower dependency on finite resources. But, in addition to reducing waste, carbon – or rather carbon footprint – is a key factor. Unfortunately, the reality is sobering: taking fashion as example, at best between 3% and 6% of the industry's carbon footprint could be remedied that way. And even worse: in order to realise the potential, three fundamental hurdles must be addressed. Some efforts are underway, of course, but a steep hill remains to climb.
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Drop of Water
Consumer-ismOpinions

How do you make it personal? The challenge of going from global goals to individual actions

Global Goals are called ‘global’ for a reason: they apply to everyone, everything. Every business, every government, every church, charity … In case there was any doubt about it: The Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement are global goals. In fact, probably the Global Goals par excellence. Yet, while organisations of all different types and characteristics are making progress in translating those to their different contexts, environments, business models etc. the same does not hold true when it comes to individuals. Beyond a few platitudes. A few arbitrary and personal musings on the role of the individual in achieving the goals.
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Plenty of value in the waste
Biz StrategyCircularityGlobalisationSupply Chain

Circularity and Business Models: 2 US reports, many learnings

The world, by and large, operates based on land-filling. The only way to improve the situation any time soon is: not to landfill. At all. Or at least as little as possible, and that asap. To that extent, 2 reports on textiles the circular economy have been published, both of which look at the issue from different, and complementary perspectives. What is it that we can learn from these 2 reports, side by side? One, the old adage could not be any truer: One Man’s Rubbish is another Man’s Treasure. And: True cost accounting would make a huge difference.
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Planetary Boundaries - Stockholm Resilience Centre
CircularityFuture TechGlobalisation

Outside the comfort zone: Planetary boundaries and Europe

Overconsumption or ‘simply’ consumption? Fair resource use, or resource depletion? Fair share, equal share or acquired share of resources? Those are questions that pop up when the Planetary Boundaries are being discussed. “Is Europe living within the limits of our planet?: An assessment of Europe's environmental footprints in relation to planetary boundaries”, published in April 2020 does exactly that: it evaluates and calculates the European performance for planetary boundaries by taking a consumption-based (footprint-based) perspective. This is turn is interesting as it relates environmental pressures to final demands for goods and services. And the results are ... shall we say: a stark call to action.
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The World Upside Down
Biz StrategyCircularityConsumer-ismGovernanceOpinions

Quality vs Quantity – Or: Preparing the growth elephant for landing

There are two approaches on how we can define of what is viable and desirable for our global economy. In one, the 'soft attributes' and non-physical factors such as consumer desires, lifestyles or distribution of goods are a fixed attribute. In the other, quantifiable, physical attributes - amongst them natural resources - are fixed. The challenge of boards in this time and age: Recognising that the first - the present - is failing. And outlining the path towards the second.
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Plastics Packaging in Bales
Biz StrategyCircularityGovernance

EU Plastic Waste Tax – Or: What went wrong, when compliance fuels R&D?

The cat is – long-time coming - finally left out of the bag: while drawing up a Covid19 recovery package, EU legislators have decided to introduce a levy on non-recycled plastic as per 1st of January 2020. Reading through the text, two points offer a considerable surprise: The short notice, the wording, and the focus on packaging. But how come that legislators seem to drive the industry R&D agenda? Here a few questions for boards to ask their CEOs to get to the bottom of this.
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CircularityMaterialsSupply Chain

Extended Producer Responsibility – Lessons from the Electronics industry

Within the EU, legislative requirements have lead to implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility schemes (EPRs) in the following industries so far: packaging, electrical and electronic equipment, batteries and automotive industries. In this article, we would like to look sidewise, and see what can be learned from the electronic and electrical equipment industry, as they have been ahead of the curve – although not always voluntarily, since the 1995 laws came into place – when it comes to the implementation of EPR.
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CircularityMaterials

Marine Micro Fibres: Moving from Conversation to Action

The effect of plastics in our oceans has been repeatedly hit in the news over the last few years. A hazard in two forms: as a plastic in totality; or as a microfiber/micro particle, which also carries chemistry (pollution) into the environment, from the product they started life as. Research to date shows that this pollution cannot be exhaustively blocked through wastewater treatment plants, consequently micro particles are ending up in our global waterways.
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Brand ReviewMaterialsSupply Chain

Better Business series: C&A

C&A, part of the Cofra Holding that owns C&A Europe, Brazil, Mexico and China, has been a family business since 1841. The company is quite conservative in communicating corporate responsibility achievements. Their style of communication appears to be more emotional than factual. The company has been awarded the Textile Exchange Future Shaper award in 2012 recognising the company’s commitment to promoting the analysis and certification of organic cotton and textiles.
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CircularityGlobalisationOpinions

Better business models will be circular

Circular economy is the antonym of linear economy. Linear economy has been the dominant industrial model in our history and postulates production is followed by consumption that then ends up with the disposal of used products. As opposed to this, circular economy seeks to rebuild capital, whether this is financial, manufactured, human, social or natural and sees products having a longer or a never-ending life that are either re-used as new inputs to create new products or shared and co-owned by different consumers.
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