A column signed by Yann de Feraudy, president of France Supply Chain by Aslog, an association aiming to unite, promote and reflect on the supply chain of tomorrow.

We are reaching the limits

For a long time, we believed and acted as if we lived in a world with inexhaustible resources. However, we are reaching the limits: for example, the electrification of the world will create enormous tensions on the copper supply chain; 50,5 million tonnes will be missing over the next eight years. Creating recycling channels must be at the heart of the new copper supply chains, but not only...

We will have to learn to work in a world where scarcity management is the norm. According to François-Michel Lambert, " Each European consumes twenty tons of virgin raw materials per year. The planet has an estimated balance of six to eight tons per inhabitant. »

As I wrote here last March, for an economy that consumes more natural resources than their capacity to renew themselves, the question is less whether we are approaching an impasse than how we could do things "differently" and develop a "circular" economy and supply chains that will allow us to meet our needs tomorrow.

An emerging but unavoidable subject

We are only just beginning to hear about this subject... In this area, I am sometimes haunted by this phrase from Jacques Chirac: " The house is burning and we are looking away... "Time is running out.

At a time when we only talk about decarbonization and commitment to carbon neutrality, without really knowing whether this will really be achieved, it is increasingly clear that we will reach the limits of certain resources before 2040 or 2050.

In a survey carried out in early 2023 by the magazine 60 million consumers, only 17% of respondents " knew and knew how to explain » the circular economy, while on the share of their subscribers this ratio increases to 50%.
As much as awareness is generally low, it is progressing rapidly for "informed" audiences and this is undoubtedly our chance, it is the consumers who could finally impose these changes. We still need to prepare for it, quickly because the task is complex and immense as it is at the crossroads of a multitude of fields: product design, technology, economics and regional planning...

The challenge of product design

If we assume the principle of reusing materials and/or parts that contributed to the manufacture of a product, either during its life or at the end of its life, it is essential to be efficient, to design this product with this in mind, from the start.
If we stop for a moment on this point, this represents a small revolution in the methods and approaches of design: choice of materials, modeling of wear and repair strategies, choice of packaging (material, shapes, destination, etc.). In order to control the economic parameters regarding the cost price, maintenance costs and handling costs of all kinds.
In perfumery, for example, screwed pumps (possibly made of single materials) are preferred to crimped pumps which lead to the destruction of the bottle and the pump.

Data and technology

But that's not all: recovering a part, a material, a package requires having specific information concerning: its origin, the actors who have already handled it, the number of cycles carried out, etc. all information to be shared according to standards of interoperability, traceability, certification and approval specific to the industrial sectors or industries.

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