What’s the ultimate destination of consumer goods? For many if not most products, it’s not actually the customer or end user–landfill is the last link in the chain.
We have come a long way since King Camp Gillette created the first product designed to be thrown away. Today our whole culture seems designed to be disposable: from single-use plastics to chain store coffee cups; from needlessly shrink-wrapped fruit and veg to huge swaths of cardboard used to protect sheets of paper (yes, really).
But revolution is in the air, with consumers increasingly concerned about the world of waste that we have created. There’s just one problem: as a species, we simply haven’t learned how to wean ourselves off our addiction to plastic and other waste generated in the supply chain. Much as we might want to reduce our waste, not many of us are quite ready for bamboo toothbrushes and home-made washing powder.
If we’re serious about reducing the billions of tons of plastic and other waste that gets sent to landfill or pollutes our rivers and seas, we need the corporate world to come up with creative solutions that will enable us to enjoy our products–without further contributing to the environmental apocalypse.
Garbage pile in trash dump or landfill
Circular supply chains
As with so much in life, it is often as useful to look backwards as forwards for solutions to today’s waste crisis. People from the past would think it absurd to use a cup just once before chucking it in the bin, and we are belatedly coming back to this rather obvious conclusion, with many coffee shops offering discounts for customers who bring their own.
Important as small steps like these may be, it will take much more to win the world’s wider waste problem. Yet the same principles of reduce, reuse and repurpose– usually overshadowed by the other “R”, recycle–will be absolutely critical in this battle. And that will require fundamental and far-reaching changes in our supply chains.
Where once the supply chain was linear and ended with the customer–or, more realistically, in landfill or the oceans–tomorrow’s supply chain will be circular, designed to foster more reduction, reuse and repurpose through secondary, sustainable business models.
In fact, we’re already seeing important steps in this direction, not least in the Loop shopping platform. A partnership between major consumer goods firms including P&G, Unilever and Nestle, together with recycling firm TerraCycle, Loop will enable shoppers to consume products in refillable, reusable packaging. This model, barely any different from old bottle deposit schemes that many can still remember, can be taken still further.
In theory, there’s nothing to stop us buying products like shampoo in our own personal bottles which we fill up from a tap in the supermarket. But if we are to move from landfill to refill, the corporate world will have to rethink their entire approach to supply chains, moving from linear to circular models. Moreover, circularity is not only about returns. It’s also about the front end of the supply chain–procurement, provenance of product and ethical sourcing. Only then can a supply chain be truly sustainable, ethical, and circular.
Getty
The technology challenge
Let’s not pretend that circular supply chains are going to be easy or cheap to implement. They will, for example, require investment in new infrastructure to change the way that goods are stored and delivered. Let’s also not forget that one of the roles of packaging is to make stacking and storage easier, and also to keep perishable products properly preserved.
Changing the way that we ship these goods around the world and to their final destination will be an enormous challenge. How we move IT towards circularity lies in technologies such as knowledge databases, or knowledge graphs, which allow for many-to-many relationships with data, thus moving away from linear, point-to-point, start and end processes. This is critical if enterprises are to make a switch to circularity sooner rather than later.
For example, integrating AI and machine learning can give a supply chain its “eyes and ears.” Connecting physical technology like smart sensors and cameras to back-end systems will introduce “guaranteed” transparency, making provenance and ethical operations visible in real-time. Machine learning increases demand accuracy, which makes supply more efficient, reducing unnecessary production and thus waste.
Another challenge will be managing new models of reuse, where creative use of new and existing technologies will be key. Playing into growing consumer interest in ethical supply chains, returnable packaging company CupClub tracks cups, lids and cases using RFID technology, enabling consumers to see where their packaging travels and ends up. Technology can also educate and incentivise people to engage in recycling, reusing and reducing their waste–like QR codes that inform customers that their packaging is recyclable.
Future supply chain technology is also likely to have a strong emphasis on social media integration, which will be key for educating and informing consumers about new ways to reduce and reuse, while incentivising them to take part in sustainability initiatives.
Getty
Beyond technology
But the real challenge is not technological. If we are to create truly circular supply chains, it will require a thoroughly holistic approach; one that brings retailers, manufacturers and customers together in a fully integrated way, so that each one understands their own unique responsibilities in winning the war on waste.
While supply chain technology today is focused on issues such as optimising journeys and enabling just-in-time delivery, the next generation of tools will be about bringing together these disparate groups in the shared endeavour of reducing waste.
To ensure sustainable, circular supply chains actually make an impact and improve a business from the ground up–and to sell in sustainability to any naysaying board members–thinking outside the box is key. The name of the game is establishing new, sustainable business models which bring new revenue possibilities.
This could be taking accountability for no-longer-wanted products–let’s take servers for example. Businesses could up the possibility for customers to return their old server and get a discount on a new one, and then involve suppliers in refashioning and repurposing the old server to create a new line of second hand business. This way, every player in the supply chain benefits, while also doing the right thing for the planet. Only then can organisations create a triple bottom line structure that delivers unmatched business value.
Everyone has a role to play in building a cleaner, less wasteful world. We have a golden opportunity to deliver a better future with today’s technologies–all it takes is the will to make it happen. Businesses and consumers alike should do everything they can to not throw this golden opportunity away.
