Circular Economy Offers Benefits Beyond Environment: Experts

As ongoing issues like war and climate change threaten the entire ecosystem, a circular economy can definitely bring together a set of practices, prioritised as per their impact, intended to optimise the utilisation of materials and energy.

The circular economy has become a new way of doing business and it has become important to preserve the environment as well as to make better use of finite resources by recycling, repairing, reusing, repurposing, or refurbishing products and materials

At BW Businessworld's Sustainability Conclave 2023, industry leaders discussed the importance of the circular economy and where India stands on the transition from a linear to circular economy.

Vijayanand, Head of HSE and Sustainability, Hero Future Energies spoke about the three Rs and what more needs to be done to make the transition effective. He said, “The three Rs- reduce, reuse, recycle need to be further extended to renovate, refurbished, remanufacturing. This needs to be practised every day but not many effective mechanisms are available to RRR. As a renewable company, our dependency on China is way too much and we need to reduce this,”

Talking about the government policies around the circular economy, Vaishnavi P, Head of Sustainability, Tata Power, said, “Niti Aayog has constituted 11 committees in specific areas where there needs to be a transition from a linear economy to the circular economy. A lot of conversation is happening from the government side but we as an industry are equally responsible to participate in this discussion, and that’s what we have been attempting,”

Adding to this, Surya Prakash Valluri, Chief Sustainability Officer, Grasim Industries stated that today the whole ecosystem is changing towards circularity. Look at the European Union (EU), they recently started the digital product passport (DPP) in the ecodesign for sustainable products regulation. "The data is managed in such a way that circularity is the centre of your product design. In DPP, one of the most important elements is how can a product be repaired, recycled, and refurbished. We too need policies like that,” said Valluri.

Taking the conversation ahead, Uday Mahajan, Head of ESG, Indus Towers spoke about e-waste and how it needs to be reduced for a sustainable environment. He mentioned, “Batteries are the frontrunner when it comes to recycling and with government support, we can have more policies and framework around the recycling of batteries. Also, the life of gadgets like laptops and smartphones is coming down and we need faster recycling techniques. If a car company can buy back a car, why cannot a gadget company buy back a laptop and make it more it more sustainable for the economy overall,”

Meanwhile, KN Sreekumar, Vice President of Smart Infrastructure, Siemens said that by default, it is in our [India] ethos that we generally don’t waste things we reuse, but as Industrial progress comes in, a lot of waste is generated. "Before bringing the circularity back, we need we make the circle long enough. We need to make products that are long-lasting to avoid waste. It’s a challenge for the industry to achieve this but this is the way to go,” Sreekumar added.