Can you briefly explain the SUPSI’s role in the project in driving efficiency, transparency, and sustainability?
Efficiency: SUPSI systematically and scientifically assess the entire life cycle of products from the three pilots, with a specific focus on sustainability and circularity. The assessments conducted by SUPSI offer a comprehensive understanding of the circularity and the environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with the products of the pilots, thereby providing them valuable opportunities to enhance efficiency while concurrently promoting sustainability.
Transparency: Within this project, SUPSI contributes to transparency by introducing a life cycle thinking approach to the pilots involved. This involves evaluating their products to identify areas for improvement through proposed alternatives. Transparency is vital in this context as it allows for a clear understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses in their current business-as-usual and prospective scenarios. Sustainability and Circularity Life Cycle Assessments, conducted by SUPSI, further enhance transparency by providing detailed data on environmental impacts, supply chains, and circular economy practices. This information empowers the pilots to make informed decisions, fostering accountability and encouraging a continuous improvement mindset in sustainability practices.
Sustainability: The studies conducted by SUPSI significantly contribute to sustainability by offering a structured framework to evaluate and optimize the environmental performance of the products and processes within the three pilots involved. These assessments aid in decision-making, guiding the pilots towards alternative approaches that enhance the sustainability of their business-as-usual model. SUPSI aligns the practices of the pilots with sustainable principles, fostering responsible environmental management across their operations.
Given your role, how does SUPSI plan to create a robust and adaptable framework that supports efficient and transparent circular manufacturing practices?
SUPSI performs comprehensive assessments of the pilots by evaluating their actual manufacturing processes, while identifying areas for improvement. These evaluations are the results of performing life cycle studies. At the same time, circular goals are established for transitioning towards a circular economy, considering factors such as waste reduction and material recycling, and ensuring they can reflect the organization’s commitment to circularity. The pursuit of pertinent certifications or standards is performed to validate compliance with circular economy principles, thereby supporting credibility and market competitiveness.
What potential challenges do you foresee in developing circularity enablers, and how do you plan to address these challenges to achieve the project’s objectives?
The main challenge lies in effectively gathering comprehensive data across all stages of the product life cycle. Presently, the pilots are constrained to provide data for only a limited part of their product life cycle, primarily centered around the production phase. This limitation poses a challenge in acquiring a holistic view of the entire life cycle, avoiding the complete understanding of sustainability and circularity aspects throughout the product’s life cycle from cradle to end-of-life and disposal. Addressing these challenges is needed to assess and optimize the sustainability impact and resource efficiency across the entire spectrum of product life cycles in the context of CE.
How does your organisation plan to collaborate with other partners to create sustainability and circularity profiles for the project pilots, and how do you intend to ensure the accuracy and reliability of these profiles?
By employing methodologies such as Life Cycle Assessment and other sustainability and circularity assessments, we will assess the profiles of various pilots. Collaboration with other involved partners will take place during the data collection phase, where efforts are required to build the life cycle inventory necessary for conducting the assessments. In order to do so, a shared designed platform will be employed to allow partners to transfer the data required.
What is your future vision of the project?
We aim at enhancing circularity and sustainable practices in the wood, leather, and plastic manufacturing areas. We aim at implementing closed-loop systems ensuring that materials are continually reused and recycled within the industry. In this way, collection and recycling processes can be developed to minimize waste and promote the return of products to the production cycle. Bio-based and biodegradable materials as well as digital technologies like the platform for LCA visualization will be also employed to promote the incorporation of circular design principles. By integrating these elements into a comprehensive strategy, the wood, leather, and plastic manufacturing sector can transition towards a more circular and sustainable future, contributing to global efforts to address environmental challenges.
How will the Circular Economy change the manufacturing sector?
The Circular Economy will transform the current manufacturing landscape in the way we create and consume. It will involve breaking away from the old ‘take, make, dispose’ model to embrace sustainability. In the context of the Circular Economy, manufacturers will make efforts to design products for durability and recyclability and will engage in practices like remanufacturing and closed-loop supply chains. This shift will not only provide environmental and social benefits but will also offer exciting opportunities for innovation and collaboration across the value chain. As consumers increasingly look for eco-friendly options, adapting to the Circular Economy is not just a choice; it is indeed a strategic move towards a greener and more resilient future for manufacturing.
