Companies are taking a circular approach that supplants our throwaway culture by prioritising – among other factors – the life-cycle management, lifetime extension, circular design and reuse and recycling of products.
Thompson said: “A circular economy tackles industrial throwaway culture using the principles of long lasting design that minimises pollution by keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible, and reducing resource dependency. This approach is particularly useful in extending the life of power distribution assets, which, when maintained, upgraded, and eventually decommissioned effectively, can deliver significant cost savings and help to minimize environmental impact by reducing emissions."
There are several factors at play driving this change: regulatory, economic and competitiveness. For example, running equipment to the point of failure may cost up to 10 times more than investing in a program of regular maintenance. Likewise, there are increasing opportunities and incentives for businesses to decarbonise, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive from the EU and Inflation Reduction Act, providing incentives for clean energy in the US.
For businesses to remain competitive and be considered an approved supplier, they also have to be transparent and demonstrate the footprint their products have on the environment with independently validated Environmental Product Declarations.
To help businesses understand the circularity concept, ABB Electrification Service has created a guide called Tackling Throwaway Culture (www.is.gd/igerem). It offers a range of practical ideas for implementing circularity in asset management, from optimising predictive maintenance and condition monitoring to adopting a component-only approach to retrofitting and upgrades. The guide also covers decommissioning of systems, responsible end-of-life disposal and future market developments in the circular asset management space.
Thompson added: “Using circular economics to avoid operational emissions with circularity is an increasingly popular way of doing business sustainably for those managing power distribution assets. Thanks to advancements in technology and a more granular understanding of the role industries must play in circular economics, there is now a wealth of tools and techniques to make circularity easier to achieve. Our guide covers these and gives customer examples that demonstrates them in action.”