SUPPLY CHAIN
Data collection is barrier to the circular economy But he says there are significant barriers to shifting to a circular economy , chief among which is “ understanding at the design stage the environmental impact of the decisions that we make ”.
Jamieson stresses that to drive solutions “ we need critical interventions ”, an says that , to this end , SAP is focusing on three areas :
• Eliminating waste to prevent destruction of nature .
• Circulating materials and products to keep them in use as long as possible .
• Having end-to-end insight to drive regenerative business , so decisions made by consumers link all the way through to ultimate land-use impact .
He says that , to achieve these things , policymakers , NGOs , investors , producers , designers , businesses , innovators and entrepreneurs must be able to unlock newtechnology solutions .
“ To deliver a circular economy , we first need to measure it ,” he says . “ We need to understand the recycled content in materials and in products . We need to understand whether those things are reusable , compostable , whether they ’ re sourced from fossil-based sources , and what the CO2 content is .”
Complex packing poses problem for circular economy Packaging , he says , is notoriously complex when it comes to sourcing , interpreting and acting upon the data required to measure environmental impact .
“ Take a chocolate box ,” he says . “ You have the tray containing the chocolate that sits within the primary packaging and then the secondary packaging around that . Then there ’ s the tertiary packaging , used for transportation .
“ Being able to understand what materials are used at what point in time in the production of your products is an unbelievably complicated task , and the reality is that the data needed is often in disparate systems .”
He adds : “ Sometimes , it might be in a SAP system , but oftentimes not . It could be across many different stakeholder groups within your organisation and across third parties , such as suppliers and packaging providers . Then the data might be in the form of an Excel worksheet or in a more formal system .”
50 January 2023