In a world where resources can no longer be taken for granted, companies are facing a necessary change: building businesses that are not dependent on a constant and guaranteed flow of virgin materials. It is not just about sustainability, it is a matter of survival and future profitability.
The world has changed. We see increased geopolitical tensions, resource competition, export restrictions, and an increasing understanding that many of our most used materials have other, more important uses than the products we want to manufacture. At the same time, some raw materials have already reached their globalization limit where asset can no longer increase, but there are serious consequences for the environment, society and economy.
In this situation, a new thinking is required: to separate profitability from virgin material flows and instead build operations that can withstand uneven access, changed flows and a more dynamic material economy.
When material flows become irregular, what do we do?
In a linear world, the availability of raw materials is often predictable. In a circular world it is not. But that does not mean chaos, it means new opportunities and a new way of thinking. Here are some crucial strategies for building a business that can handle uneven flows of materials:
1. Raw materials: Design for reuse and separation
By avoiding complex material mixtures and investing in modular design, you can dramatically increase the recovery rate and reduce dependence on new resources. Products that are easy to disassemble, sort and rebuild create a built -in resilience. Instead of using an advanced plastic metal composite that is impossible to separate, you may be able to work with a standardized plastic part that can be easily recycled, replaced or upgraded.
2. Circular material: Identify new sources
We are looking for raw materials in rock, but often overlook the valuable resources in our waste. There are garbage flows that are pure resources. Old electronics products contain gold, cobalt and copper. Textile waste can become new fibers. Demolition materials can be reused in new buildings. Mapping resources in residual streams are the exploration of the future.
Think of it as finding “new mines” but located in cities, warehouses, containers and recycling centers.
3. Ensure circulation through smart design and business models
Design is not just about what something looks like, it is about how something is used, reused and recycled. A product designed to be taken back (take-back design) is the beginning of its own raw material flow.
It can also be about business models. If the customer rents instead of buying, or if you offer exchange programs, you will get control over your own source of material. It will be profitable to take care of what you once sold.
4. Buffers and smart layers
In a world where material flows are not constant, we need to think more as farmers than factories. We have to store during good times to cope with the more difficult.
An example: a floor company that wanted to win a sale promised not to burn withdrawn floors. They therefore had to buy large amounts of used floors, even though they did not know how to handle it. A few years later, they had solved the recycling and sat on their own layer of valuable raw material. The cost of the warehouse turned out to be lower than the market price of new material.
Creating buffers is a low-cost insurance against future resources.
New roles in the future activities
When we reject the business’s profitability from virgin materials, new business opportunities are opened, but also new skills needs:
- Purchasers must not only monitor the price of new raw materials. They need to be able to evaluate and anticipate prices for recycled material. They must be able to analyze residual flows, collaborate with recycling actors and understand the logistics of circulation.
- Sales no longer sells only products. They can also sell the recycled material in their own returned products to other players. They build relationships along the entire value chain, not just at the beginning and end.
- Designers need to understand material flows as much as they understand form and function. They must be able to design for disassembly, traceability and upgradeability.
A new type of robustness
Many companies are afraid to handle irregular material flows. But in practice it is often more robust to work with several circular sources than to depend on one or two stable virgin sources. If the only source is knocked out by a war, a pandemic or a geopolitical crisis, production stands still.
If, on the other hand, you have built a system where materials come from several different directions, through collaborations, recovery and innovation, you will not only become more resilient, you also get a competitive advantage in times of deficiency.
To build business for the irregular is to build for the future
The most successful companies of the future will not be the ones who find the most material, but those who find the most value in what already exists. Those who learn to navigate in a landscape where access to material shifts, but where creativity and cooperation is constant.
And when others stop because a limited access to the supply, these activities continue to deliver, not despite irregularity, but thanks to the fact that they have built with it as a prerequisite.
