Circular Economy For Telecoms?

Get (Re)used To It
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May 26, 2021

Written by Caio Castro

CATEGORY: Exclusives
TAGS: telecoms, Sustainability, circular economy

Have you watched those sci-fi movies in which the future looks bright, especially when it comes to
energy consumption and sustainability? Green energy everywhere within the next 30, 50 or 150
years. No more waste, every gram is reusable.
Let us leave those scenes aside for a second: Instead of the (very necessary) vision of how humans
will handle sustainability in a far future, companies and organization are already working on
solutions for the present. One of them is the Circular Economy Partnership (CEP), which has been
gaining traction recently.
Circular economy is an approach(方法) to design and production of (electronic) materials that can
be reused in more than one item and by more than one player. It’s not only about refurbished(翻新
的) products, but also components(組件) made to be employed by different manufacturers.
According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), one of the
founding partners and the current secretariat(秘書處) of CEP, only 8.6% of the global economy is
circular as of today. About 17% to 18% of the total e-waste is formally captured(真正被捕獲).
“That’s very poor,” said Brendan Edgerton, Director of Circular Economy at WBCSD. “Even if we’re
not trying to achieve a hundred percent we should be much, much higher than that, and we
strive(努力) to be. Obviously, even there [in e-waste capture], there’s a big gap(很大的差距) that
needs to be addressed(需要被解決).”
The CEP has six founding partners and 18 electronics companies, and Edgerton explains that they
have identified six pathways along the electronics value chain with three main approaches to
tackle(處理) the sustainability puzzle.
The first one is the materials which companies are putting into their products, and whether they are
including more recycled content and moving away from hazardous substances.
The second aspect is design and manufacturing. The challenge here revolves around(圍繞著) how
to produce components and materials so that they can be refurbished, repaired, and
remanufactured, or recycled at the very end of their life.
The last approach is to rethink the company business model to effectively recover waste and
reinject(重新注入) it into the supply chain and processes. Take-back schemes(回收計畫), in which
a corporation collects used materials, are one of the possibilities to explore further(進一步探索).
“All of the aspects(方面) are necessary, but there are many different solutions within each of those
buckets that companies can choose from,” Edgerton said. “Depending on the product, or the
component, or the material, some of these are going to be more feasible economically(經濟上更可
行). They’re going to be more beneficial environmentally, even socially than others. So these are
the decisions that each company has to make.”

Circular Economy for 5G and Beyond(5G 以及以後的循環經濟)

While the bulk of circular economy attention is turned to the physical portion of sustainability,
Edgerton acknowledges that the rapid technology transformation imposes challenges to industries.
That is especially true when thinking ten years ahead, when society and its behaviours will not be
the same.
“Any time there’s new technology, if thought is not given to how that is deployed and how it is
expected to be captured afterwards, it makes it more challenging, right?” the executive proposed.
“You have new products, new materials, new components that companies towards the end of the
life cycle might not know what is inside or how to dismantle(拆除), or how to process. So, whether
that’s 5G infrastructure(基礎設施) or a new type of device that’s out there, this only makes it
trickier to handle those properly(使正確處理這些變得更加棘手).”
From his experience, the telecom industry still has a way to go in getting on the same page
regarding circular economy(在循環經濟方面保持一致還有很長的路要走).
While there has not been too much conversation about circularity among players, Edgerton
believes there is a need to bring the whole supply chain together to discuss how they can adopt
circular economy-friendly actions. That includes original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), telcos,
logistics, and end-of-life material handlers.

Addressing the big question

In a world more and more connected every day, one of the most difficult tasks in circular economy
is tracking the material throughout its lifecycle(追蹤整個生命週期所使用的材料), so that one can
measure how circular a company, process, or component is.
CEP has come up with a creative solution: They will be launching a pilot project(試驗項目) that will
deposit a barcode at the molecular level of products and track them across multiple stages of the
lifecycle. This way, they want to retrieve data on where those products are going and quantify how
much is being recovered.
As of now, the pilot is just beginning, but Edgerton forecasts CEP will have more insights from this
experience to share by the end of 2021.
All of those initiatives seem to send a signal of exciting times ahead for sustainability. While the
telecoms industry has been shyly practicing circular economy without labelling it that way, there
are some limitations CEP and others try to address. But where there is a limitation there is an
opportunity.
“I think it’s a number of different factors that play into why now is the time [the industry is paying
more attention to sustainability]. I think [some of the challenges are] recognizing that e-waste is the
fastest-growing waste stream in the world, recognizing the economic opportunity of actually
capturing some of these materials and reusing them. And then, ultimately, how do we improve the
livelihoods of people along the value chain through thinking about circularity?” Edgerton said.