Working Draft
Advancing
sustainability
through hyper
circularity
How new technologies can help
companies realize circular strategies to
avoid waste, benefiting both their
business and the planet.
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Authors
ALPANA DUBEY
ALEX KASS
MEENA IYER
alpana.a.dubey@accenture.com
alex.kass@accenture.com
meena.iyer@accenture.com
Research Lead Digital Experiences, Bangalore
Fellow and Global Research Lead Digital
Experiences.
Business and Technology Integration Executive
Technology researcher in the areas of Human
Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, and
Software Engineering
Innovation specialist working at the intersection of
technology, human learning, and human
performance.
Sustainability champion with practical experience in
digital transformation and intelligent automation
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Contents
• How technology can help achieve hyper
circularity
• Why Hyper circularity matters
• Vision: Achieving hyper circularity by
inverting the end-of-life pyramid
• Enablers for pyramid inversion
• Realizing Hyper Circularity across new
business models
• Accenture offerings and example assets
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HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP ACHIEVE HYPER
CIRCULARITY
Leveraging Technology across three key dimensions of hypercircularity:
Circular strategies are
already playing an
important role in
organizations. However,
the highest-level of
circularity is yet to be
achieved. We still need to
improve along at least 3
key dimensions. In this
POV, we show how the
right approaches and
technologies can help
achieve this in multiple
business contexts.
1. Moving further from disposal or recycling to a focus on ubiquitous re-use
•
Squeezing every ounce of useful life out of products and components requires carefully
disassembling the product and finding buyers for the specialized components
recovered, which is much more complex than simply breaking the product down.
Technologies for Resell marketplace and quality check to match components to
potential buyers and efficient disassembly process can help achieve this.
2. Creating efficient production processes to reduce waste of resources.
•
3.
Careful product design can reduce waste of resources during production process. Design
for circularity can help designers to ensure that designers focus on waste in production
process during design process.
Creating intelligent, efficient recycling.
•
Recycling can be made more efficient if components and materials are properly
extracted and segregated as this will cause less material mixing and therefore efficient
processes. An efficient disassembly process can enable this.
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WHY HYPER CIRCULARITY MATTERS: THE
COST OF WASTE THAT CAN BE REDUCED
A conscious attempt to waste management can play an important role in circular economy. Circular economy handbook identifies four
kinds of waste that businesses should focus. The picture here shows those along with their market size and ways to address the waste
problem. Each of these play a major role towards narrowing, slowing, or closing the loop.
WASTED RESOURCES
Material and energy that
cannot be continually
regenerated
Ways to address: Introduce renewable and biobased materials, chemicals and energy
Market size:
$1.7trillion
WASTED EMBEDDED
VALUES
Components, material and
energy not recovered at
disposal
Ways to address: Increase
recycling, upcycling, component
harvesting and energy recovery
Market size:
Key terms
WASTED
CAPACITY
Underutilized or unused
products and assets
Ways to address: Increase
sharing,
co-owning, co-using,
resource pooling, etc.
Market size: $0.6
Slowing the loop
trillion
WASTED LIFECYCLES
Premature end
of working life of products
Ways to address: Lifecycle services for resell,
maintain, repair, remanufacture, etc.
$1.3 trillion
Market size:
$0.9 trillion
Source: The Circular Economy Handbook: Realizing the Circular Advantage, 2020
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Narrowing the loop
Efficient use of resources.
For example, using less
energy or material during
production process
Extending the use of
products. For example,
using product for longer
time, repurposing the
product for other use
Closing the loop
Recycling of material and
reducing leakage. For
example, taking back
most of the material so
that they can be recycled
or reused for better
purpose
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ACHIEVING HYPER CIRCULARITY BY
INVERTING THE END-OF-LIFE PYRAMID
With better use, reuse, and disassembly, we can make significant impact on circularity adoption
End of life pyramid represents actions performed on
product / component / material at the disposal time.
Product end of life where majority reach to landfills
Our vision is to invert the end-of-life pyramid by better
reuse, disassembly, and efficient use of products.
The basic concept is to drive up as much as possible the
extent to which we circulate products and materials at
their highest value, rather than disposing of them as is.
The top image depicts that only a small fraction of
products / material gets reused as of today when they
reach to end of life. With right technologies and
processes we can invert this by increasing reuse over
recycling and make recycling more efficient by
segregation of material.
Product end of life where majority is reused
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ENABLERS FOR PYRAMID INVERSION
Efficient
disassembly
process
An efficient disassembly
processes can help in
reusing the components.
Technologies such as
robotics and AI can help in
creating a disassembly
process where parts are
extracted undamaged;
therefore reusable.
Resell marketplace
Quality checks
A resell marketplace to
connect consumers to buy
and sell used parts and
products can help firms in
realizing hyper circularity.
Firms need to establish a
financial incentives for its
consumers to be part of
such market and provide
logistics to ease the process
of selling on such
marketplace.
Quality evaluation is very
crucial to assess fitness of
products and its parts for
reuse. Approaches for such
evaluation will vary based
on type of products. For
example, for a food
products chemical analysis
will be more suitable
whereas for an apparel
image processing will be
most suitable.
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Design for
circularity
Design for circularity makes
sure that products are
designed keeping waste in
mind. That is, they are easy
to disassemble when they
reach to end of their life,
they ensure less material
waste, and use resource
efficiently
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THREE EXAMPLES: WAYS TO ADDRESS WASTE
PROBLEM WITH HYPER CIRCULAR MINDSET
Electronics Product
Electronics industries brings untapped opportunities to slow and close the loop by providing users DIY
repair and disposal support. For example, users of electronics products can be provided better support
to increase the life of product with self repair. An automated assistance for disassembly can enables all
the components to be reused in other products instead of being recycled or disposed of.
WASTED
CAPACITY
WASTED
LIFECYCLES
Food Product
An assistance to assess food condition through chemical sensors can help users decide if it can be
consumed therefore avoiding fixed expiry labels. Assistant can also help them with recipes to reuse
food products. A proper supply chain can enable users to give away food before they get spoiled /
expired.
WASTED
LIFECYCLES
Apparels
Apparel owners can use a resell marketplace to sell apparels standing in their closet without being
worn for years. A digital closet assistance can help user in styling and giving them new look with
existing apparels, thus increasing reuse. Fashion firms can upcycle unsold apparels in this manner.
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WASTED
CAPACITY
WASTED
LIFECYCLES
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Realizing Hyper
Circularity in Business
Models
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COMPANIES AT ALL LEVELS OF MATURITY ARE
REALIZING TANGIBLE VALUE FROM CIRCULARITY
Market Leaders
Interesting Innovators
Quantified Benefiters
Leadership
Innovation
Value Creation
• Fully circular CG&S business
• All materials used can be infinitely recycled
• Over 75% of products are certified ‘Cradle –
to-Cradle’ gold level
• Built the first LEED platinum certified
manufacturing facility: carbon neutral, water
neutral and landfill free
• Modular phone disrupting the market with
fully sustainable offering
• Innovative design allows owners to open and
repair phones without any specific skills
• Product design and repair model extends
phone life to 5 years
• 154 million pounds of end of life material
taken back from customers for
remanufacture (2015)
• Sustainable products, services and solutions
accounted for 18% of company’s total sales
and revenues in 2015
• Early pioneer of integrating circularity from
product design, packaging and shipping
through recycling and reuse
• Developed the first computer made using
certified closed loop recycled plastics
• Using its global position to shift standards
and policies towards a circular economy
• An innovative sportswear brand
• Revolutionised the material science behind
water-repellent treatments for functional
clothing
• Challenges the industry by making clothes as
pure as possible - all clothing is 100%
biodegradable and could be used as fertiliser
• $11 billion in recyclable materials are buried
in U.S. landfills annually
• Unique app matches independent garbage
haulers and recyclers with companies to
schedule on-demand waste pick-ups
• Recent business valuation at $800 million by
Forbes
• Source: The Circulars dataset
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COMPANIES ARE ADOPTING NEW BUSINESS
MODELS
What does hyper
circularity mean
for business
models?
Approaches to hyper
circularity may be quite
different for different
business model as they offer
varying opportunities to push
towards circularity
Agile :
Personalized :
Real-time adaptation to customer
needs with a 'start-up' mentality
Products and services
tailored to meet existing
and potential customer's
individual needs
Subscription :
Costs of costly assets
shared across the users
Closed-Loop : Products are
recovered and recycled reducing
overall costs
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Circular
Value
Chain
Pay-as-you go- Product as
a Service : Asset Sharing
method - Enable increased
utilization rate of
products by making possible
shared use /access /ownership
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BUSINESS MODELS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR
HYPER CIRCULARITY
While each business model brings several strengths and limitations, here we show the opportunities to
bring more circularity in each business model
Personalized
Closed loop
Asset sharing
Pay as you go
Agile
Strengths: Longer
product use as customers
are more attached to
personalized products
Strengths: Longer useful
life and planned circular
strategy
Strengths: product use is
high
Strengths: product use is
high
Limitations: Possibility of
in-efficient use as product
moves among users
Limitations: Possibility of
inefficient use
Strengths: Faster
reaction to market
demand
Limitations: Limited
reuse potential
Opportunities: Introduce
design for disassembly /
reusability
Limitations: Scope of
iterations over circular
strategy is small therefore
changes not noticeable
instantly
Opportunities: bring agile
mindset and increase
collaboration with partners
Opportunities: educate
users in efficient use of
product, Monitor products
for efficiency
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Opportunities: Nudge
service providers for
frequent assessment of
products for resource
efficiency
Limitations: More
frequent / less effective
implementation due to
agility and short cycles
Opportunities: Make
learning curve steeper for
long-term planning on
right sized business
models
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ACCENTURE OFFERS A NUMBER OF TECHNOLOGY DRIVEN
CAPABALITIES THAT CAN HELP DRIVE HYPER CIRCULARITY
ACROSS A RANGE OF BUSINESS MODELS
BUSINESS MODELS
TECHNOLOGY VALUE LEVERS
ACCENTURE OFFERINGS
Agile
REDUCE WASTE APPAREL DESIGN TOOLKIT
Helps fashion designers in designing apparels that produces less
fabric waste.
Closed-Loop
RESELL WITH TRUST
A resell market through with price prediction, condition
assessment and product cataloguing services to make fashion
industry more sustainable
Subscription
HUMAN-ROBOT TEAMING TOOLKITS FOR DISASSEMBLY
Suite of solutions to bring robots as a coworker in human based
disassembly process for better reuse and efficient recycling
UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGIES
Internet
of
Things
Intelligent
XR
• Sensors and
Actuators
• CAD software
• 3D object
scanners
• Robotics simulation
Robotics
• Pose and gesture
estimation
• Path planning
Personalized
Asset Sharing
(Product as a
Service)
INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SUPPORT ASSISTANT
An Intelligent XR based assistant to help customers in efficiently
using, repairing, and disposing products
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN ADVISOR
An AI based CAD analysis toolkit to help designer build more
circular products with several metrics
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Digital
Twins
• Simulators
• Augmented
Reality
• Computer vision
Artificial
Intelligence • Machine learning
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Example Assets
The next few slides captures the assets that Accenture offers to its clients to push towards higher level
of circularity
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REDUCED WASTE APPAREL DESIGN TOOLKIT
Reduce waste apparel design toolkit narrows the loop by reducing fabrics wastage in apparel production
process.
Challenge
The textile industry is the world’s second largest polluting
industry both in terms of production and waste. Unsold
inventory, cutting left-overs, roll ends, used apparel are either
burned or dumped at landfills. Fashion and textile industries
need to find more circular solutions to reduce their
environmental impact. Designers need technological solutions
that can help in reducing waste and overall cost.
Original Apparel Pattern
Optimized Apparel Pattern
Solution
Our solution guides designers in creating apparels that create
less waste and therefore reduces cost. Our solution uses
advanced AI algorithms to detect contours of apparel patterns
and optimally place them to reduce cutting leftovers. This
solution also predicts fabric waste and related cost as early as
the design stage, thus helping designers make more
sustainable design choices
Outcome
The Reduced Waste Apparel Design Assistants help designers in
generating apparel design with low waste therefore causing less
pollution and reducing cost.
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RESELL WITH TRUST
Resell with trust platform extends useful life of products by enabling users to resell unused apparels; thus
slows the loop.
Challenge
The fashion industry is challenged with the mounting problem of waste that
ends up in landfills each year. Consumers’ awareness of the ecological impact
of the apparel industry has increased, and they are demanding apparel
businesses to expand their commitment to sustainability. As a result, retailers
must now adopt a resale strategy that can maximize their profits and minimize
their climate impact. The resell market is expected to double in size to $77
billion over the next 5 years. However, issues like counterfeit products and nonstandardized resale price impact the resale industry adversely. Technological
solutions can help bridge this gap and build trust in this industry.
Solution
Our solution uses advanced AI analytics to match the resell apparels with their
original catalogue products. Deep Neural Network technologies are used to
perform reverse product cataloguing and extract detailed features of the
resell product. Such information helps in better inventory management and
product search in this market. Advanced Computer Vision can also help assess
the condition of the product and all these factors can help predict a fair and
explainable resale price for the product.
Outcome
This solution helps build trust in the resell market through AI based resell
price prediction, condition assessment and product cataloguing. It will help
retailers, resellers, buyers and recyclers and make the fashion industry
more sustainable.
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HUMAN-ROBOT TEAMING TOOLKIT
FOR DISASSEMBLY
Human-Robot teaming toolkit for disassembly helps in extracting components without any damage so that
it can be effectively reused or recycled. It helps in closing the loop and extending the loop with reuse.
Challenge
leg
pickup
align
Plan
generator
Disassembly of products are very crucial for an efficient recycling
process or reuse. Due to lack of tools for disassembly often products
are crushed which causes material mixing and makes recycling
inefficient. Moreover, a manual disassembly bring huge health hazard
to people involved in disassembly process. For example,
disassembling a battery may cause huge health and life risks.
table
Robot
configuration
table + leg
leg
tighten
pickup
table + leg
Solution
We have developed solution for human-robotics disassembly in
which human work alongside cobots in disassembly process. Our
solution leverages techniques such as dynamic plan generation,task
distribution, automatic programming of cobots, and novel user
interfaces to guide human-cobot interaction in following roles 1)
human as a co-worker and 2) human as an instructor.
align
table + leg + leg
Outcome
University Collaboration - IITM
The human-robot teaming toolkit helps in looping back the product
parts in product life cycle at its highest value chain. A majority of
parts can be reused through this solution; thus, saving on resources
and reducing emission. Parts that cannot be reused can be recycled
more efficiently as they can be separately treated / recycled with
similar material.
We are working with IITM to develop a solution for
Human-robot disassembly process for Lithium-ion
batteries (LiB). LiBs are going to be one of the top
pollutants in near future and a right strategy is needed to
handle the used batteries. We plan to develop a scalable
robotics solution for the same.
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INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SUPPORT ASSISTANT
Intelligent product support assistant helps in nudging consumers to use, repair, and dispose products
sustainably with end-to-end life support to consumers with unique AI and XR based application.
Challenge
Consumers have become more sustainable-aware these days.
However, there is a lack of solution to assist consumers using,
repairing, troubleshooting, and disposing product sustainably.
Solution
We developed Intelligent Product Support Assistant, i.e., a
coaching / assistance framework that leverages multi-modal inputs
captured by sensors and user actions, to coach consumers in
various tasks such as product installation, assembly, usage,
troubleshooting, repairing, dis-assembly, disposal etc.
This assistant is an AR application that helps users in visualization of
next steps in real-time. It uses AI techniques for Scene Analysis and
Next Step prediction.
Outcome
The Troubleshooting Assistant aids in a sustainable product journey.
We also envision resale and re-purchase of used parts. The Intelligent
Product Support Assistant can help both consumers and repair
personnel to sustainably use, troubleshoot and dispose off a product
or its parts.
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SUSTAINABLE DESIGN ADVISOR
Sustainable design advisor helps designers in making sustainable design decisions so that products are
modular and easy to disassemble. This reduces material mixing when products recycling is planned at end
of life. It also helps in effective reuse of product parts.
Solution
We developed a data-driven solution that leverages
information from 3D CAD models to generate a feasible
disassembly sequence. Graph Representation Learning has
been adopted to understand and process component relations
to generate the sequence and direction of disassembly of
individual components in the product.
Outcome
Challenge
Every product that reaches its end of usable life needs to be discarded
sustainably. EOL products are often landfilled or incinerated, leading to the
loss of potentially valuable and recyclable materials, and leeching of toxic
substances into the air or soil.
Effective disassembly of products is a key enabler of circular economy
strategies. Disassembly aids in product maintenance and repair, enables
reuse of parts and significantly increases the recycling yield and purity for
precious metals, critical metals and plastics from EOL products. Currently
disassembly is largely manual, unstructured, human centric, and carries a
range of health and environmental risks.
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The Disassembly Assistant provides an AI driven, automated and
streamlined approach which makes the disassembly process
more efficient and safer. Such a solution can see wide
applicability in Robotic Disassembly, Digital Disassembly, Product
Assembly Planning, Product Maintenance and Repair.
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HOW DO WE ENGAGE?
6-12 months
First 6 months
Key Outcomes
Key Activities
Co-create
Proof of Concept:
Beyond 12 months
Pilot Implementation
Scale
Pilot:
Scale up
• Pilot the identified solution in
limited scale
• Deploy solution at scale
• Drive solution for clients with
Industry-X partners
• Implement Portfolio Governance &
Modernization Strategy
• Use case definition and Identify
Industry X partners
• Develop a POC to show our asset in
the business context
• Initial hypotheses
• Pilot phase
• Labs Offering Development
• Opportunity Discovery
• Report on outcomes from
pilot
• Work with Industry X partners and clients
• High Level Business cases
• Proof-of-concept and user study
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In conclusion
Business models bring unique strengths when it come to adopting individual circular strategy but pose challenges in
achieving a holistic approach towards circularity. There is still lot more to be done on choosing the right strategy for
the products when they reach end of life. Strategies such as resell marketplace, effective disassembly, design for
disassembly can pave a way to push towards Hyper circularity.
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Thank You