The business benefits of the circular economy
In this episode we interview two circular economy experts; Jonas Bengtsson from Edge Environment and Jenni Philippe from Circleco, as they share their thoughts on the circular economy and the benefits it brings to both the business and our planet.
Jonas Bengtsson is the CEO of Edge Environment https://edgeenvironment.com/ [https://edgeenvironment.com/] and Jenni Philippe is the CEO of Circleco https://www.circleco.co/ [https://www.circleco.co/]
Show notes are below:
I think circular economy has been around for a very long time. So it's not a new concept by any means. But perhaps it's, it's best framed in terms of what the challenge is. And globally, we use about 100 billion times of resources every year to for buildings for cars for food and packaging and everything we consume and use. So 100 billion tops, and only about 10% of that is from recycled or reused resources. The rest of this is stuff that we new resources that we bring into the economy. About two thirds of this ends up in insert is wasted, it ends up in landfill or disposed off. So what is circular economy? It's about addressing that issue in a smart, informed way.
Jenny, I think you've probably got a bit of a different perspective and different understanding how would you explain it? Was there anything different or what's your sort of spin on it?
So it's very aligned with what Jonas was saying, I guess to break it down to a few key principles. To me, a circular economy is a new economic model that all organizations government communities can thrive in. And that's really based on three key principles that you know, the first one is designing out waste and pollution of any processes that we follow in any product that we make. And the word design here is really critical, which is kind of the angle that I put on my work. The second principle is about extending the life of your product for as long as possible so you don't dispose of them too quickly and you really use up all its value as much as possible through reuse, strategy, repair strategies, maintenance, repurposing, upcycling and underpinning all of that you want to be looking at regenerating natural systems through renewable energy strategies. So making sure that all the consumption of the resources that you make these as much as possible renewable or regenerative so you give back to the environment what you take away from it.
What might be some circular economy businesses that are out there in the mainstream that people you know, might not even know a circular economy or playing behind the scenes?
Philips, the lighting company, is actually extending a creating a lot of circular services at the moment and their model is to Take the lights, the light bulbs, all the fixture all the material and equipment to provide lights and sell that as a service as opposed to selling the light bulb. So for instance, there's an airport in the Netherlands, that is buying that service to Philips and Philips is in charge of owning all the infrastructure, all the maintenance, all the equipments. So in that sense, then you're accessing what you need, which is lights, I don't think airports really want to buy light bulbs, they want to provide lighting to their customers. And that circular model, which is product as a service is really how helpful because it actually gives an incentive to Philips to provide a lot more efficient products, because it's their own in their own interest to reduce their costs to make sure that their their products are durable, and are going to be extended for as long as possible that they're modular so they can replace aspects of it without having to replace the whole thing.
I feel that Australia is playing catch up for now.
