HEAD 2 HEAD

My starting point for this piece is that the word ‘consumer’ currently describes most people, and that part of the solution for achieving a circular economy is to empower consumers to become what might be called ‘prosumers’: people and communities who actively contribute to the cultivation of a circular economy. I would like to suggest that education and schooling play a key role in the journey from linear to circular systems, and while some gains are being made here, this needs to be more of a focus both for educationalists and advocates of the circular economy.

Engaging with the circular economy

The idea of a circular economy has been around for a while now (a quick search indicates that the idea started to emerge in the 1960s) but the uptake of these ways of thinking is arguably not happening fast enough.

Why is this? Is it because we are all slaves to the linear economy, or that we lack any sort of ethics, values or compassion? I don’t think so. I choose to believe that people are generally good and capable. For me it is simply that not enough people get it. We are not yet creating the conditions where enough people, young people in particular, understand and can engage with the notion of a circular economy.

The circular economy movement has achieved great strides in securing the cooperation of producers in moving away from an industrial production model. This is great, but is it happening at the expense of engaging fully with the public, and is it happening in a way which takes note of the fact that involving young people is vital for the future of any economy, regardless of what shape it takes? I work for the charity Character Scotland, an organisation that has just become the first charity in Scotland to be recognised with an ‘Investors in Young People’ good practice award. We operate in the way we do because we know that young people have a huge amount to offer.

A strategy which prioritises producers over consumers seems sensible in many ways, especially as it seems to be based on a well-founded assumption that our environmental problems exist at the production end. However, given the emphasis on ‘new ways of thinking’, it strikes me as odd that the current approaches to circular economy largely emphasise the system and not the individual agents within it.

AGREE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Walsh is a curator of innovation in education.

A professional musician by training, he has supported schools with themes such as motivation, access to education, personal safety and character development.

He is currently developing an emerging educational charity, Character Scotland.

www.character.scot

“Consumers are the Solution”

For this ‘Head 2 Head’ series, we approached a number of people from a variety of backgrounds to write an opinion piece around a contentious statement, asking them to take either an ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ stance. In some cases the authors have been deliberately provocative, and their goal is to contribute to a conversation around some chosen themes.

The views expressed here are the authors’ alone.

What do YOU think? Join in the conversation in the Cafe Area.

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DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION FESTIVAL 2014 ~ HEAD 2 HEAD

“Consumers are the Solution”— AGREE

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A challenge to Systems Thinking ‘purists’

Not everything is about systems. Systems thinkers are wary of reductionism, rightly so, however the circular economy movement might be in danger of over-compensating. There is a kind of ‘reverse-reductionism’ at play where everything ‘boils down to the system’: that it is the system and the complex interdependencies of its elements that drive everything.

Let us not forget that systems are created and maintained by people. Despite the title of ‘systems thinking’, systems do not themselves think – people do. Systems do not feel, learn, empower, enable, disrupt or innovate – people do.

Looking at it this way, the creation of a circular economy becomes more about the people who create and drive the system: hence why I am suggesting that one of the key purposes of education should be about learning to create and contribute to a circular economy. In order to create such a system, we should be cultivating the knowledge, skills, personal attributes and attitudes needed for it to thrive: character education for the circular economy.

Circular Education

A circular economy needs a circular education system to feed and support it. At the moment, the education system arguably uses a linear process of input (teaching), process (learning) and output (assessment). Education is a one-way conveyor belt: most of us never go back.

So what would a circular approach to education look like? Perhaps the aforementioned producers would be returning to their local learning communities to share their experiences and knowledge of the circular economy. Perhaps advocates of the circular economy would be speaking with education policy makers and having a noticeable impact on fundamental principles of education. Perhaps young people would be empowered to influence the development of the circular economy through the use of an open knowledge exchange facilitated by inquiry-based learning, critical thinking and action research. Schools are actually pretty forward-thinking and open to these kinds of innovations.

So what?

There are two take-home messages in this post: on the one hand I am suggesting that the creation of a circular economy demands a circular approach to education, and that needs more attention. The circulation of knowledge in an open society is what can enable a circular economy to take shape.

On the other hand I am suggesting that we should focus more on engaging openly with young people and empowering them to join the circular economy movement. After all, it is people that ultimately dictate whether circles are vicious or virtuous.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with that article? Join the debate in the Cafe

Few are the companies and organisations following the words of Walter Stahel: “Today’s goods in the market are the resources of tomorrow at yesterday’s resource prices”. [1] The vast majority of businesses as well as consumers does not yet adhere to Circular Economy (CE) concepts offering an alternative way of consumption through a restorative industrial economy by intention and design.

Are consumers the solution to the implementation of circular business models, systems, services and products at a large scale?

Undeniably, consumers play an important role in a transition towards a CE as they can drive businesses to shift their current paradigm. Sadly, consumers are still inclined to favour a linear consumption model;

To begin with, consumers do not yet trust used, recycled or remanufactured products. [2]

On top of this, they are still not willing or unaware of the appropriate value recovery infrastructures to be used when disposing of their end-of-life products. Taking the example of mobile phones, merely 10% of the valuable pieces of technologies are collected at the end-of-life. [3] The collection is however crucial in the recovery of products meant to be reused, refurbished, re-manufactured or recycled.

Next to the challenges on the product front, some resistance can be found with respect to the application of non-ownership business models such as performance- or access-based models. [4, 5, 6] In the technical cycle, manufacturers would stay in control of the resources embodied in their products by for example leasing them to their customers. ‘Consumers’ would as such evolve into ‘users’. [7] Regardless of relieving users from the burdens of ownership [8, 9], and despite being a spreading form of consumption, the adoption of non-ownership models and circular products does not seem to seduce all consumers. [10, 11, 12]

These challenges could be overcome by raising awareness through education, governmental action, mass communication, consumer activism and so on. [2] Furthermore, large scale success stories of truly circular products and systems could trigger the public’s eye to re-evaluate its perception of used goods and shift to non-ownership models. To bypass obstacles caused by current consumer behaviour, why not turn to B2B first in order to scale up?

Consumers are in both cases rather passive. Do you see them taking the streets any time soon to demand circular products and services?

Moreover, other aspects in the chain form threats to the implementation of CE principles. A lack of information sharing affects both manufacturers and entities at the end-of-life of the product. [2, 3] Also, the lack of an appropriate supply chain and the considerable changes engendered for a number of stakeholders stand as an obstacle.  [2]

Not to mention challenges linked to circular designs and upscaling; think of the lack of standardisation or interchangeability of subassemblies and/or components, and even the lack of designers’ knowledge and understanding of CE to name a few. [2, 13, 14]

Without customer involvement, CE is predestined to fail. This does not mean ‘consumers’ are the solution.

In a transition towards CE, businesses and entrepreneurs ready to take up the challenges throughout the value chain and willing to collaborate together are key.

They may not be driven by the market, but rather by resource constraints: acknowledging the embedded value of products and acting upon it will become the only viable option. [7, 15]

These will be the star players enabling the creation of a global CE.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The half Dutch half French Flora Poppelaars was one of the Schmidt-MacArthur fellows of 2013. She recently graduated with a master’s degree in ‘Integrated Product Design’ at the Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands). Next month, Flora will start a PhD at the TU Delft in the field of CE.

DISAGREE

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION FESTIVAL 2014 ~ HEAD 2 HEAD

“Consumers are the Solution”

References:

[1] W. Stahel, “The business angle of a circular economy – higher competitiveness, higher resource security and material efficiency,” in A New Dynamic - effective business in a circular economy, vol. 2013, 2013, pp. 1–10.

[2] V. Kumar, D. J. Bee, P. S. Shirodkar, S. Tumkor, B. P. Bettig, and J. W. Sutherland, “Towards Sustainable ‘Product and Material Flow’ Cycles: Identifying Barriers to Achieving Product Multi-Use and Zero Waste,” in Proceedings of 2005 ASME IMECE 2005 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, 2005.

[3] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Electronics Waste Management In the United States Through 2009 Executive Summary,” Washington, 2011.

[4] P. Tanskanen, “Electronics Waste : Recycling of Mobile Phones,” E. Damanhuri (Ed.), Post-consumer waste Recycl. Optim. Prod. InTech, 2012.

[5] J. Chapman, “Design for (Emotional) Durability,” Design Issues, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 29–35, Oct. 2009.

[6] W. R. Stahel, The Performance Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

[7] TU Delta, Interview of Herman Wijffels “Studenten van nu moeten een nieuwe realiteit creëren.” [Online]. Available: http://delta.tudelft.nl/artikel/studenten-van-nu-moeten-een-nieuwe-realiteit-creeren/28902. [Accessed: 10-Oct-2014].

[8] Berry, Leonard L. and Kenneth E. Maricle, “Consumption without Ownership: Marketing Opportunity for Today and Tomorrow,” MSU Business Topics, 21, 33-41., 1973.

[9] Moeller, S., & Wittkowski, K., “The burdens of ownership: reasons for preferring renting”. Managing Service Quality, 20(2), 176–191, 2010.

[10] Belk, Russell W., “Why Not Share Rather Than Own?,” The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611, 126-140, 2007.

[11] Botsman, R., & Rogers, R., What’s mine is yours: The rise of collaborative consumption. HarperCollins, 2010.

[12] Mathews, J.A., & Tan, H. “Progress Toward a Circular Economy in China”. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 15(3), 435–457, 2011.

[13] R. Geyer and V. Doctori Blass, “The economics of cell phone reuse and recycling,” The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, vol. 47, no. 5–8, pp. 515–525, Sep. 2009.

[14] W. He, G. Li, X. Ma, H. Wang, J. Huang, M. Xu, and C. Huang, “WEEE recovery strategies and the WEEE treatment status in China,” Journal of Hazardous Materials, vol. 136, pp. 502–512, 2006.

[15] Department for International Development and Research for Development, “Working Paper Series : Economic Growth.” 2008.