The Dutch government aims to have the entire economy run entirely on reusable raw materials by 2050. By 2030, we should already be halfway there. In the process, waste will be converted back into a raw material and production processes will be redesigned. However, the transition to a circular economy is not yet that easy. We can't get rid of second-hand clothes and even the charity shop will politely thank you if you bring large pieces of furniture.
Thinking differently is perhaps one of the most important elements in achieving change and hence innovation. But make no mistake, changing thinking is difficult and takes time. I realised this during a workshop on 'borders and boundaries' at the Design museum's open museum evening in Den Bosch. These are two words that we both translate as borders in Dutch, but each has a different meaning in English. Food for thought.
A border is translated as a hard border, a boundary that prevents you from going any further, think of a fence, a border between two countries, a ticket booth where you have to buy a ticket, etc. A boundary, on the other hand, is a soft border, think of the sea rolling smoothly across the beach and then retreating, but also a threshold at the entrance of a house that most of us easily cross. But if you start thinking about these two words, you soon find out that boundaries are largely determined by your own thinking.
That consumer is not always waiting for second-hand stuff. We need to think differently. Fortunately, more and more companies are responding to this. IKEA, for example, is fully experimenting with Product as a Service. In this, the retailer does not sell the new sofa sets, but rents them out. The company thus keeps control of its raw materials and can encourage reuse. In the clothing industry, this is done for instance with jeans (Mud Jeans) and tailor-made suits (Dutch Spirit). Old is made into new again. Are these the innovative business models we need in the transition to a circular economy?
Ingrid Vermeer
CEO a.i. Brightlands Campus Greenport Venlo
brightlands.com
