CIRCit – a new Nordic project
The team is also head of another ongoing project called CIRCit – Circular
Economy Integration in the Nordic Industry. CIRCit is a Nordic research
project between Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and Finland
with the aim of supporting the Nordic industry with circular economy
methods and tools throughout the whole life cycle of products and
systems.
“In this project, we research into new tools to be used by companies,
when innovating, developing, operating, and recirculating technical
products and systems. At the same time, we are developing a method
to help assess the sustainability potential of new circular economydriven
concepts, with respect to social, economic and environmental
sustainability perspectives,” says Tim McAloone.
As in all other projects in which Tim McAloone and his research team
are involved, CIRCit is based on a close collaboration with companies in
the Nordic countries. Companies – large and small, and from a range of
industry sectors – are invited to participate in workshops and deeper
research partnerships to give their input and achieve new knowledge
about circular economy. The aim is to support sustainability by
increasing resource productivity, enhancing energy efficiency, lowering
resource consumption, and decreasing waste.
CIRCit will develop a number of new tools, e.g. a dynamic decisionmaking
tool for circular business model creation and a tool to evaluate
the sustainability performance of technical products for circularity. Or
a design tool to aid the design for monitoring, upgrade, remanufacture,
reuse, and so forth. Some of the tools will also regard closed-loop
operations, focusing on selection of end-of-use strategies, reverse
logistics and closed-loop materials and components.
“We have great expectations to the new tools developed across
different kinds of industries, including new technological opportunities
like Internet of Things (IoT). Through the use of sensory technology, we
will analyse product data together with our company partners to help
them understand where they can benefit from keeping their product in
use for longer, or when to carry out an upgrade, for example. CIRCit’s
tools will incorporate experience from a range of industries relevant
to the Nordic region, which will make it possible to learn across both
industry sectors and country boundaries,” says Tim McAloone.
The expectations to the project are very high. CIRCit will involve 15
companies – and their value chain partners – in action research projects
of 2-6 months in scope. In addition, 50 other companies will try and
test the methods and tools developed in CIRCit, before the toolbox is
finally released for general application.
CIRCit is part of the Nordic Green Growth Research and Innovation
Programme funded by NordForsk, Nordic Energy Research, and Nordic
Innovation.
“I am very proud of the work we have done
on this project, which has given rise to
several success stories and new spin-out
activities for the companies involved.”
Researchers with lots of experience
The two projects, MATChE and CIRCit, are far from the first practical
guidelines and tools that Tim McAloone has developed for industry.
Since 2012, his team has acted as the main consultants on a large
project regarding Eco-Innovation for UN Environment. This project,
which is part-funded by the United Nations and part-funded by the
European Commission, has developed guidelines and educated advisers
from over 76 developing and transition economies to work with new
business models and eco-innovation strategies within small and
medium-sized enterprises. McAloone and team have been responsible
for creating the entire eco-innovation methodology, the toolbox for
practitioners, and the training of the advisers and consultants within
the participating countries. Eco-innovation promotes sustainability
throughout the entire life cycle of a product or system, whilst also
boosting the companies’ performance and competitiveness.
“I am very proud of the work we have done on this project, which has
given rise to several success stories and new spin-out activities for the
companies involved. The knowledge obtained from developing the tools
to the UN project can to a great extent also be used in our current work
within the Danish and Nordic industries – the principles for “circular
products” are the same everywhere in the world,” says Tim McAloone.
The CIRCit project consortium
12 Circular economy – new practical guidelines for industry