Business as unusual - how business is embracing the circular economy
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This presentation was given by Dr Catherine Joce at the Cambridge Climate and Sustainability Forum - a one-day forum held at the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, UK. This event aims to increase awareness of climate change, sustainability and 21st Century environmental challenges. A recent survey by Deloitte found that 92% of CEOs publicly support the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet only 17% actually have a plan to achieve them by 2030. Business has a crucial role to play in bringing about environmental change. Governments can legislate and individuals can modify their behaviour, but the vast majority of goods and services we use are produced by business. So, helping businesses to innovate and deliver low environmental impact products and services whilst still being commercially competitive is one of the many challenges our engineers and scientists address almost every day.
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Business as unusual - how business is embracing the circular economy
- 1. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.31 Commercially confidential Catherine Joce, Nathan Wrench BUSINESS AS UNUSUAL How business is embracing the circular economy
- 2. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.32Commercially confidential >750 engineers, scientists, designers and consultants working from our offices in the UK, USA & Asia Full end-to-end development capability and deep scientific fundamentals to deliver real innovation We operate a fee for service business model, our clients owning the resulting IP 70% of our work is repeat business – we become trusted partners for our clients Synapse is part of the CC Group following an acquisition in 2016 WHO WE ARE A world leader in technology and product innovation
- 3. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.33Commercially confidential We work across a range of industries, understanding the specific needs and trends of those industries and allowing transfer of technology and approaches between each one
- 4. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.34Commercially confidential We work for a diverse and global clients – from multi-nationals to start-ups
- 5. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.35Commercially confidential We bring an outstanding range of skills across product and service development SENSORS RF & ANALOGUE ELECTRONICS DIGITAL ELECTRONICS DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING APPLICATION & EMBEDDED SOFTWARE USER INTERFACES DATA SCIENCE & BIG DATA ULTRA LOW POWER ASICSFLUIDICSALGORITHMSBIG SYSTEMS MECHANICAL INDUSTRIAL DESIGN HUMAN FACTORS REGULATORY CONNECTED SYSTEMS DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURE IOT & DIGITAL SERVICES NEW PRODUCT INTRODUCTION APPLIED SCIENCE
- 6. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.36Commercially confidential The challenge
- 7. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.37Commercially confidential Economic growth correlates with resource consumption Image source: UNEP (2011) Decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth, A Report of the Working Group on Decoupling to the International Resource Panel. Fischer-Kowalski, M., Swilling, M., von Weizsäcker, E.U., Ren, Y., Moriguchi, Y., Crane, W., Krausmann, F., Eisenmenger, N., Giljum, S., Hennicke, P., Romero Lankao, P., Siriban Manalang, A.
- 8. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.38Commercially confidential Energy Decoupling economic output from materials consumption is a huge challenge Materials Source: EEA Technical report No7/2014, Progress on resource efficiency and decoupling in the EU-27
- 9. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.39Commercially confidential The opportunity
- 10. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.310Commercially confidential Circular economy provides a framework for business to combat resource dependency challenges
- 11. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.311Commercially confidential KEEP MATERIALS, COMPONENTS & PRODUCTS CIRCULATING AT HIGH VALUE IN THE ECONOMY DESIGN OUT WASTE FROM SYSTEM APPLY SYSTEMS THINKING Circular economy key principles
- 12. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.312Commercially confidential
- 13. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.313Commercially confidential Five technologies that will unlock a circular economy
- 14. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.314Commercially confidential Five technologies to unlock a circular economy 01 SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
- 15. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.315Commercially confidential Five technologies to unlock a circular economy 02 INTERNET OF THINGS
- 16. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.316Commercially confidential Five technologies to unlock a circular economy 03 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
- 17. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.317Commercially confidential Five technologies to unlock a circular economy 04 NEW REMANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES
- 18. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.318Commercially confidential Five technologies to unlock a circular economy 05 MARKER AND TRACER TECHNOLOGIES
- 19. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.319Commercially confidential Some examples from Cambridge Consultants
- 20. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.320Commercially confidential Our clients are investing in defining sustainability strategies and goals Technology is a key enabler to meet these goals Sustainable innovation; 1/3 net revenue from more sustainable products by 2020 Contribute to society through the development of superior, original technology and products Improve water-use- efficiency in our breweries by 22% to achieve a 2.8 hl/hl water-to-beer ratio
- 21. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.321Commercially confidential SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY Food waste contributes an estimated 7% to global emissions CC developed a fully automated waste processing system using larvae to convert tonnes per day of food waste into high value protein feedstocks Container-sized modules can be deployed at the source of the waste e.g. supermarkets to eliminate food waste transport costs and can be easily scaled to meet seasonal variations CLOSING THE LOOP ON FOOD WASTE
- 22. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.322Commercially confidential SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY In 2015, approximately 6300 Mt of plastic waste was been generated, around 9% of which was recycled, 12% was incinerated, and 79% was accumulated in landfills or the natural environment CC conducted market analysis to identify current and future applications of bioplastics including materials substitution and innovation applications Evaluation of PHA properties and design considerations Mapping of PHA supply chain to identify key materials suppliers and manufacturing considerations PHA BIOPLASTICS
- 23. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.323Commercially confidential Over 8bn PET bottles and 3bn coffee cups are disposed of in the UK each year CC developed a smarter recycling system to improve recycling rates and quality Machine vision and machine learning allow the system to be trained to recognise new items over time Consumers using the smarter recycling point were 35% more likely to dispose of waste items correctly than those using a traditional bin End-of-life touch point extends a brand’s customer engagement and reduces the loss of recyclable materials to landfill SMARTER RECYCLING
- 24. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.324Commercially confidential Business as unusual?
- 25. 16 February 2018 SIPG-P-125 v0.325 The contents of this presentation are commercially confidential and the proprietary information of Cambridge Consultants © 2017 Cambridge Consultants Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered No. 1036296 England UK Cambridge Consultants is part of the Altran group, a global leader in Innovation. www.Altran.com www.CambridgeConsultants.com USA SINGAPORE JAPAN. . .
Editor's Notes
- Metabolic rate = resources used per capita
- Circular economy thinking is transforming businesses under pressure from consumers, environmental regulators as well as suffering increasing competition for raw materials. The circular economy model aspires to use resources to their maximum value, keeping them within the economy indefinitely, preferably as whole products rather than materials, and aiming to ‘design out’ waste from the system. In practice this means products which last longer, can be repaired, upgraded, remanufactured or recycled in combination with accompanying new business models. In simple terms circular economy is exploring how to make more money whilst selling less stuff (or less new stuff!), an ambition which in principle should deliver both commercial as well as environmental benefits.
- CC we are leveraging our deep technology expertise to help companies unlock value from material resources. Often CE proponents focus on the importance of new business models – whilst undoubtably important, tech will also play a key role in the resource conundrum.
- Synthetic biology is a new approach to design where rational and systematic engineering methods are applied to biological systems. Because nature is the ultimate example of efficient use of materials, this emerging field offers vast potential to contribute to a circular economy from process to product. For example, chemical processes using rare metal catalysts and organic solvents, often at high temperature or pressure can be replaced with enzymatic processes carried out in aqueous solution and ambient temperature. Where heavy metals are still required, microbes can be used to sequester heavy metals from industrial waste – bringing the metal back into the supply chain. Advances in chemical and biological processes are also unlocking cost-effective conversion of biomass into platform chemicals, which feed into existing supply chains to produce fuels, packaging, textiles and speciality chemicals. One interesting bio-derived polymer, PEF, is suitable for food and beverage packaging as well as for fibres for carpets and textiles. For the packaging industry, PEF offers better characteristics in comparison to conventional plastics, such as improved barrier properties for gases like carbon dioxide and oxygen, leading to a longer shelf life of packaged products.
- Many circular economy approaches involve asking how an asset could be used more intensively, which involves understanding asset location, asset condition and asset availability. An average car is only is use around 5% of the time. Conversely, car clubs, such as ZipCar, are able to achieve much greater utilisation rates by using location data to track asset location and availability and match supply and demand. Internet of things solutions have even been applied to the most humble of products: the bin. Sensors detect when municipal bins are nearly full and automatically schedule a collection. Routing algorithms can be used to optimise collection vehicle routes. Vehicle movements are significantly reduced, saving fuel, labour costs and reducing the total number of refuse trucks required.
- Additive manufacture 3D printing will impact both on manufacturing processes, where it will drive resource efficiency improvements, and the repair market, where printing provides quick and easy access to parts which are rare or even obsolete. For example Boeing is looking to trim costs with first ever 3-D printed plane structures and Mercedes-Benz Trucks already use 3D printing processes for plastic spare parts including spring caps, air and cable ducts, clamps, mountings and control elements.
- Remanufacturing is defined as returning a product to as good as new condition with warranty to match. Remanufacturing, particularly of large complex engineered products, is nothing new: Renault have been remanufacturing near Paris since 1949: 25,370 engines, 15,930 gearboxes and 11,760 injection pumps have been reconditioned and given a second life. Modern advances in technology include automated disassembly using robotics, new surface reconditioning technologies such as high velocity arc spraying and nano-brush-plating technology and novel methods of non-destructive testing such as ultrasonic testing, metal magnetic memory testing and eddy current testing. Remanufacturing is evolving from a niche, labour-intensive activity to a mainstream high-tech industry. Today, increasingly lower value products such as shopping trolleys and office furniture are remanufactured at significant scale.
- Sorting increasingly complex, constantly evolving waste streams in order to reprocess materials and capture value remains challenging. Plastic packaging plays a vital role in protecting and prolonging the life of products, but the complex range of polymers, often laminated together presents significant technical challenges to recyclers. Novel marking approaches to help detect different materials are under development. Machine-readable fluorescent inks can be used to distinguish between food contact and non-food contact plastic. Digital watermarks are patterns that can be applied in label or packaging design, or directly to the polymer surface. Having minimal visual impact, they can be detected by a camera and created at very low cost.
- Establish a global reputation for technology development at Cambridge Consultants as a key enabler to meeting aggressive sustainability targets Delivering step changes in process Efficiency Identifying potential efficiency gains and new business opportunities Conceiving and realising radical products ands services Developing and deploying complex digital networks