Fostering transparency

Material transparency, historically, has been a lot like a game show, if you think about it. You know, the old series where a helpless contestant would tremble aimlessly in front of three different doors and be directed to “pick one.” Material transparency can often feel the same way. How can the consumer be expected to make the right decision when they can see the doors, but not what’s behind them? Material transparency aims to open the door for customers and allow them to make an informed decision about the materials they want to interact with, build with, and even sell.

In the context of material health, exploring the lifecycle process allows the user to create an inventory of the materials and chemicals used in a product’s manufacturing process. Compiling accurate and transparent information on the chemicals and materials used in a product is the first step toward ensuring that they comply with your standards. Activities related to the inventory approach include engaging with raw materials suppliers and creating a materials inventory or bill of materials (BOM).

Instituting chemical management

The screening and eventual denial or acceptance of chemicals takes place in a number of ways. If a chemical has been identified by a governing body as safe, it’s free to circulate through an open market. If a chemical is found to be hazardous — to various degrees — that material is either removed from the market completely or its use is limited. From regulatory compliance and restricted substances lists to proactive toxicological assessments, data is used to eliminate known or suspected hazardous substances and move toward safer chemistry.

Rewarding innovation

As the demand for various materials continues to evolve as new problems arise, innovation steps in to offer a solution. When suitable substitutes don’t currently exist from a chemistry perspective, design innovation can help eliminate the need for chemicals of concern while also ensuring that a product continues to meet its function, quality, performance, value, and aesthetic requirements. These innovations rarely stem from inside the system itself. The United States post office didn’t invent email, and a candle maker didn’t invent the light bulb. So, when innovation is required to solve a problem, look outside the current system for influence elsewhere.

Preserving natural capital

Let's take another look at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Butterfly Diagram of the circular economy system — this time, in light of the three principles for creating alternative materials processes. (See Figure 11-1. For more on the foundation's Butterfly Diagram, see Chapter 10.) At the top of the diagram, you’ll find Principle 1. In this area of the Butterfly Diagram — Renewable Flows Management and Stock Management — we are addressing the source of materials. Here, there’s a separation between renewable feedstocks (called biological nutrients) and finite materials (technical nutrients, in other words). Clear features distinguish these two cycles: biological nutrients (wood, paper, cork, or cotton, for example) have the ability to decompose when returned to nature; whereas the technical nutrients (aluminum, iron, or plastic, for example) do not decompose, which is why their useful life must be prolonged by design.

Products must be redesigned to facilitate the separation of each product’s components so that at end of life it can be easily disassembled and the parts reused. Designing highly intricate products with an array of materials to perform amazing services is great and all, but if it can’t be used for very long or it can't be recycled to create another product with a similar level of performance, is it truly valuable?

Enhancing the usefulness of products, components, and raw materials

Slotted in the middle of the Butterfly Diagram, you’ll find Principle 2. Within this area of the diagram, you see the meat of the lifecycle and the processes involved. When analyzing the process steps between the extraction of resources and the use of the final product, you see a number of steps. Each uses energy to accomplish its task. And each step produces waste.

On the technical side of the Butterfly Diagram (refer to Figure 11-1), note that the component parts of any product are designed and manufactured to be uniform so that they can be reused after they've been safely and easily disassembled. Allowing this to take place facilitates their continuous reintroduction into the production system. Doing so eliminates unnecessary waste and keeps down the demand for raw materials. Looking at this through a business lens, rather than have product sellers, we have service providers that optimize the use of resources through a wide range of strategies, such as modular design, durability, and repairability. Decreasing the amount of raw materials required eliminates the cost of extraction, resulting in a competitive advantage. By reducing the need to produce new components, we also reduce our dependence on virgin resources.

On the biological nutrients side, the first opportunity for the user to eliminate waste and maximize the value of a resource is called cascading. This creates a platform for products to be cyclically reused for several purposes. For example, clothes made of organic cotton can be reused to produce new articles of clothing, which in turn can be reused to produce insulation material for construction or for filling pillows or beanbags. The same statement applies to materials such as cork or wood. Once a material has reached the end of its life, value remains in the material, in the form of energy. Through various biochemical extraction techniques, the same energy that was required to grow the original product can be extracted once more for further use. Finally, the remaining biological nutrients can be safely returned to the biosphere in the form of compost, thus regenerating the soil and its fertility and closing the nutrient cycle.

Developing effective systems that minimize negative externalities

At the bottom of the Butterfly Diagram (refer to Figure 11-1), you find Principle 3. Within this area of the diagram, the goal is to eliminate negative externalities — waste from the system, in other words. It’s possible to not only minimize the volume of resources that end up in a landfill but also recapture the waste generated within lifecycle processes.

For a long time, organizations have been attempting to do less harm by focusing on the efficiency of processes rather than on the process itself. It’s like trying to sharpen the corners of a square tire to make it run more smoothly. The problem is that “less harm” is still doing harm. Efficiency doesn’t eliminate the opportunity for waste; it only reduces the amount produced. If you have the outlook that “the glass is half-full,” I’m sure you’re eager to explain why efficiency is still important, and it is. Please don’t get the wrong idea. But the focus of Principle 3 isn’t efficiency. The focus should be on doing well via effectiveness and building resilient systems. Doing well involves creating value for all parties involved, including organizations, communities, living beings, and the environment.

Refusing the new: Reusing the old

Say goodbye to the endless and repetitive purchase of things. Now that companies are providing a product as a service, you pay for the performance of a product rather than for the privilege of owning it. Rather than be responsible for the purchase, maintenance, repair, and replacement of a product, companies are now providing the full use of an item but without the costs and hassle of owning them — and at a much lower cost and at higher rates of efficiency.

For example, HP realized that selling ink cartridges created a high product-to-waste ratio and ended up costing both the company and end user a lot of money in the end by constantly requiring the input of new, raw materials. HP realized the opportunity for optimization via reuse and changed their operations in response. Now, HP’s new printers are able to notify the company when its user’s ink cartridge is running low and automatically order them a new one. Once the user receives their new cartridge, they can send back their old cartridge via a prepaid envelope. This process allows HP to reuse its plastic cartridges multiple times, which reduces its supply costs and optimizes its profits through reuse.

HP is not the only company that has realized the opportunity for optimization via reuse. eBay and Craigslist are built for reuse! They allow you to buy, sell, and trade new and used goods with little or no face-to-face interaction. You can pretty much find anything you’re looking for on these websites, which has led to their continued use and popularity. Though you can find almost anything you want on these platforms, others — like Kidizen (www.kidizen.com), an online marketplace exclusively for children’s toys and clothing — successfully focus on specific niches.

Buying anything new is rough because you will, without a doubt, be paying more than what the product is actually worth. Online and in-person retail centers will always charge extra to keep their services up and running. When you buy a previously used item on eBay, Craigslist, or other reuse sites, however, those costs are avoided.

Employing the remaining factor: Remanufacturing

Machines of all types are spread out across the globe. Before they were constructed, thousands of man-hours, as well as large sums of money and time, were invested to create these extremely detailed machines. The advantage of machines is that tedious work can be eliminated to focus instead on creative and organizational activities. The disadvantage of machines is that they have a limited lifespan and can often be difficult and/or expensive to repair and maintain.

When a machine stops working, traditionally it has often been more economical to replace the machine completely rather than hire someone to troubleshoot and repair it, with little to no certainty that something else won't go wrong with the machine the following day! Having one machine down can cost a company thousands, if not millions, of dollars, as its rate of production drops. This understanding results in a high level of technical waste.

This doesn’t have to be the case, however. There’s an opportunity for optimization via the remanufacturing of these machines. If machinery is remanufactured rather than built from scratch with virgin materials, components could be cheaper to make — at the same time saving large amounts of money in material inputs and reducing emissions. Guangzhou Huadu Worldwide Transmission, a Chinese auto parts supplier, acts as a useful case study to illustrate the value of remanufacturing as a service. This company not only creates effective channels for the collection and distribution of used and remanufactured transmissions but has also been authorized by more than 30 major auto companies to provide maintenance services.

Machines are heavy and pricey, and the potential for remanufacturing machines makes this opportunity for optimization a hopeful opportunity for businesses. Not only will customers be able to obtain remanufactured — yet still high-quality — products at a better price, but the producers of those remanufactured items are also able to receive a higher profit margin. Remanufacturing is a no-brainer when you consider how you can improve your material lifecycle. Remanufacturing requires next to no virgin materials, keeps products and materials in use for longer periods, and eliminates the majority of waste commonly found in machine lifecycles.

Biochemical extraction for the win

Once a natural material can no longer be used, it’s often immediately considered waste and thrown out. There are, however, numerous opportunities to extract the very energy that was used to grow that material to begin with. Bioenergy is energy derived from any fuel that originated from biomass — timber, for example. Biomass is a renewable resource, just like wind and solar — even if it often isn’t recognized as such by the general public — and therefore is an alternative (and resilient) source of sustainable energy. Historically, biomass in the form of firewood has been used to provide energy through direct combustion.

The value of biochemical extraction is that biomass residues and waste resources are able to be converted into new resources. (Keep in mind that this is waste that would otherwise have been left to decompose.) Although some biomass is specifically grown to be used as fuel, biochemical extraction allows additional energy to be extracted from residue as well as waste resulting from resources that were grown for other purposes, like food or fiber. Though this conversion of biowaste to a new energy source involves many complex processes that don’t need to be addressed in this book, the main takeaway is that additional value can be extracted from waste material.

Opportunity for optimization is not only available within the technical lifecycle — biological waste also often still holds value at the end of its useful life. Technology and processes are available to fully extract the value of a resource before it’s returned to the earth to support the growth of further resources. For biological materials, the essence of value creation lies in the opportunity to extract additional value from products and materials by cascading them through other applications. In biological decomposition, whether it’s natural or in controlled fermentation processes, material is broken down in stages by microorganisms, like bacteria and fungi, that extract energy and nutrients from the carbohydrates, fats, and proteins found in the material.

Examples of extending the value of a biological material through biochemical extraction are described in this list:

• Food fermentation: This is a creative (and ancient) way to process and preserve food. The processing strategy involved here utilizes the growth and metabolic activity of microorganisms — real, living creatures — for the transportation of food in one form into a completely different form. Fermentation was originally crafted as a way to preserve perishable agriculture food items. This built-in a certain level of seasonal resilience, allowing people to survive on leftovers from last year’s harvest during times of drought and low crop yield. Since its origins, though, the technology involved in the process of fermentation has evolved dramatically to serve as more than just a backup plan. Fermentation is now a tool for creating desirable organoleptic, nutritional, and functional attributes in food products.
• Livestock waste: This type of waste can be an alternative energy source for livestock farmers through the use of a biodigester. An anaerobic digester partially converts livestock waste into energy, in the form of biogas. This biogas — made up of mostly methane — can be used to run farm operations or be sold to local distributors. Manure is easily collected on dairy and hog farms where cows are routinely confined. Biogas is most efficient when used directly for heating, and dairy farms have a year-round demand for hot water. You can see how a closed loop system, developed to manage livestock waste while also generating and utilizing a renewable energy source, would fit well into a circular economy model.

• Biodigesters: As difficult as they are to build and develop, biodigesters are fairly simple to understand. Organic materials that are decomposed by bacteria in an airless environment release biogas, as part of the respiratory process of these microorganisms. As long as farmers continue to funnel continuous amounts of livestock waste into the digesters, the living organisms within the system that produce the natural gas will continue to feed on the organic waste and maintain a consistent flow of renewable energy. (That’s a pretty good deal, if you ask us!)

  The best part about the closed loop process of biodigesters is that it is truly a closed loop. After all the gas is extracted, the slurry within the digester can also be extracted and sprayed onto fields as a form of fertilizer. This fertilizer then helps to grow the same crops that will feed the cows, who then generate the livestock waste that will again be funneled into the digester and circle back to the beginning again.