The circular economy is a service design problem
Getting to more sustainable manufacturing depends on establishing circular economies.
What does that mean? A circular economy is where waste outputs from one step in a manufacturing process become input (or “food”) for another manufacturing process, thus minimizing waste going into landfills, the atmosphere or waters, and reducing the need to extract new materials from the Earth.
This is particularly pressing in the tech sector. More than 50 million tons of electronics waste are generated each year, but only 17.4% of that gets recycled. Furthermore, we dump plastics weighing the equivalent of 90 aircraft carriers into the oceans - every year.
These are the outcomes of a linear economy. The World Economic Forum estimates that less than 10% of the world’s economy today is circular. Clearly we need to do things differently, and the circular economy approach offers that transformative opportunity.
Achieving circularity doesn’t happen by accident. It requires careful and ongoing attention to all the elements of the cycle, and aiming for win-win scenarios for all stakeholders. In other words, this is a service design problem. As designers, we can apply the tools more typically used for serving customers in a linear model, and apply them in this context that looks beyond just selling to the consumer.
Let’s look at some success stories across the stages of the cycle, then we’ll talk about how to use service design methods to get started with establishing a circular economy at your company:
HP: Service design for take-back and reuse
HP’s Instant Ink program for its inkjet printers uses service design principles to create a smooth experience - I’ve been using it for several years and it’s worked great. Instant Ink sends out new ink cartridges ahead of when needed by monitoring your printer usage, and makes it easy to return empty cartridges to be refilled and resold by HP. The benefit for customers is they always have a supply of ink ready to go. For HP it means an ongoing source of subscription revenue (though with concerns about anti-competitive lock-in). Nevertheless, this type of closed loop avoids enormous amounts of plastic waste.
EVs: Reclaiming materials to reduce extraction
With the growth of EVs it’s vital to have systems to take in worn-out electric batteries and reclaim the valuable materials inside them. Europe and the US, for example, don’t have sufficient sources of the critical ores to make batteries, which are often mined in politically or logistically challenging regions. So old batteries are a key source of “urban mining” to manufacture new ones.
Apparel: Circularity from the start
“Fast fashion” that encourages rapid disposal of poorly-made clothes is a frequent target of criticism for its environmental harms all the way through the chain from material sourcing and processing to manufacturing practices, and over-consumption and needless waste.
Patagonia is a well-known vocal advocate for the circular economy, and has been putting it into practice over many years. It notes, “Ultimately, the crux of circularity isn’t take-back programs, it’s rethinking how products are conceptualized to begin with.”
Another innovator in the outdoor clothing space is Sweden’s Houdini Sportswear, which has worked extensively with suppliers and manufacturing partners to set up circular economies. At the consumer end, Houdini not only sells clothes, but also rents them (as some of its clothing is only needed occasionally or for certain seasons). Houdini will also take back items for reselling, and offers repair services. (This is something I wish Kuhl offered when the zipper on my expensive parka came apart after several years - they gave me a good credit toward future purchases at least, and I used a specialized zipper repair vendor in Oregon to do the fix for only $25).
Peak Design: Consumer-to-consumer reselling
Camera accessory and backpack manufacturer Peak Design, based in San Francisco, pays a lot of attention to sustainability in its design and manufacturing, and a few years ago set up a marketplace where customers could resell gear they no longer needed. I used it to sell a backpack and, typical for Peak, the end to experience was thoroughly well thought out and smooth, with help and reassurance at every step, such as a lifetime guarantee even on used Marketplace items. That’s what’s needed if you’re going to make this type of initiative be successful and realistic from a business perspective
Not one circle, but many
As we can see, there are service design opportunities through the whole product lifecycle:
Optimizing the supply chain
Product design and manufacturing
Selling, renting and subscriptions
Marketplaces for taking back, trading and selling on goods
This means that there is not one circular economy even for a single company, but many loops targeted at different areas, each with their own stakeholders, requirements, inflows and outflows. As Houdini CEO Eva Karlsson observed when I interviewed her, “You have to reboot your brain for the circular economy.”
Use service design to get started
So how can you get started with using service design to establish or optimize circular economies?
The first step is to understand the current state of this cycle for your company and envisioning more optimized cycles. This is exactly the kind of thing that journey maps and service blueprints are good at - they aren’t just for purchasing flows! Use these to:
Map and visualize the key flows, breaking down the steps within them
Identify interaction points between teams, 3rd parties, customers, stakeholders, etc.
Identify needs, motivations, pain points, concerns and blockers
Track communication and resource flows, and issues with mismatched timings, alignments, points of contact, expectations, etc.
Flag factors that may be constraining optimization, such as existing processes, review cycles, regulatory requirements
And of course let us know if we can help 😀 We have a lot of experience with journey maps and service blueprints in B2B and manufacturing contexts.
