Re-thinking how we manufacture industrial products and deal with them at the end of their useful life could provide breakthrough environmental, social and economic benefits. Adopting value-retention processes is a win-win situation for governments, industry and customers. Governments would have less waste to deal with, generate green jobs, and stimulate economic growth; industry could lower production costs, avoid resource constraints on business growth, and open new markets; and customers could benefit from lower prices for refurbished products.
This report connects the potential for resource efficiency, via circular economy and the processes that retain product value within the systems, with a policy-relevant lens. The report is one of the first to quantify the current-state and potential impacts associated with the inclusion of value-retention processes within industrial economic systems.
In order to do that the assessment applies the different value-retention processes to a series of products within three industrial sectors and quantifies benefits in relation to the original manufactured product, such as the material requirement, the energy used, the waste as well as the costs and the generation of jobs. In addition, the report also highlights the systemic barriers that may inhibit progressive scale-up including regulatory, market, technology and infrastructure barriers, and how they could be overcome.