The need for a circular economy – and what's hindering progress
At the present time, economies worldwide are typically following a linear production model. This leads to massive losses of material, dependency on geopolitical unstable states or competitors and volatile primary resource markets.
A circular economy, on the other hand, seeks to preserve the value of the utilised resources and materials as long as possible, reuse them as many times and produce as little waste as possible. The most prominent circular economy concept is the re-utilisation of products that have reached the end of life through repairing, reuse, re-manufacturing, refurbishment and recycling. Circularity for sustainable growth has several ecological and economic benefits, the most important one being the decoupling of economic growth from the use of resources.
However, while recycling rates are improving, they still fall far below desirable values or economic efficiency. The collection of a material does not automatically imply its proper reuse, re-manufacturing or recycling. Arguably, the most important factor that hinders the emergence of a circular economy is the lack of information on supply, quality, availability and suitability of materials.
Data-driven innovation is a key enabler of growth and jobs in Europe and about 40% of European companies share or re-use data with/from other companies. Through sharing and collaborating in data ecosystems, manufacturers can unlock the value of data and address business needs that they cannot address alone. This trend will grow significantly in the near future and will be an important contributor to the creation of a circular economy.
Unfortunately, as of now, full-fledged digital platforms that support circular markets and digital transformation across supply chains, are non-existent. While there has been significant progress in the digitalisation of factories, European manufacturers tend to manage their data in-house, indiscriminately treating it as one big trade secret and having no effective mechanisms to share it collaboratively within the relevant ecosystems.
JIDEP: Unlocking the value of data
JIDEP is a digital space where industrial data is available for sharing and connecting manufacturers from different sectors into a collaborative, mutually beneficial knowledge and data-sharing relationship. It builds upon the principles of Industry 4.0 by adopting a coherent approach to semantic communication between diverse actors, aiming to make both direct and indirect contributions to the EU climate neutrality goals of 2050. JIDEP is a landing place for any organisation that has a data challenge to be addressed on its journey towards delivering a more sustainable material, product, service or solution. The JIDEP tools will help organisations unlock the value of data, leading to the development of more sustainable solutions, technologies, and materials.
The JIDEP platform will be designed to cover the entire product life-cycle and assist in steering it towards circular standards implementation at both technological and regulatory levels. JIDEP will integrate a tool-set implementing a resilience framework for growing organisational and industrial capacities to withstand supply chain disruptions in the short, medium and long term. As such, JIDEP ingests industrial data and produces sustainability, resilience, and circularity guidelines, knowledge and specific solutions for its users. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the JIDEP’s concept and objectives, respectively.
What JIDEP will deliver
The project will implement and demonstrate the JIDEP capabilities in three major use cases: (1) materials for end-of-life wind turbine blades (2) materials for end-of-life vehicles; (3) materials of decommissioned electronic printed circuit boards (PCB). Although the above sectors have seen substantial investments, they face increasing sustainability challenges due to recycling/up-cycling difficulties.
BCC is the technical and dissemination leader of the JIDEP project. In addition, BCC is responsible for delivering a state-of-the-art report on technologies related to JIDEP and developing an analytical tool for composite material structures.
Collaborative Space and User Dashboard:
- A form of business marketing.
- Available manufacturing techniques and capacity which can initiate services.
- Circular product development opportunity initiated from the platform.
- Links with other stakeholders to drive R&D
Material Passports
- Information related to the material’s physical, chemical, and mechanical properties, process parameters, and material values after EOL. This information can initiate recycling, and re-use/innovation opportunities with other stakeholders.
Circularity Calculator
- It allows architects, engineers, and planners to maximise the reusability, reparability, and recyclability of materials from the outset, giving meaningful feedback about circularity in the value chain of the product. With a circularity strategy, sustainable material usage will be achieved.
Environmental analytic tool
- Estimate the environmental footprint of the product and process for different material options to improve the sustainability of the product.