With the likes of Blue Plan­et shock­ing the nation and Michael Gove now eager to bring in new sus­tain­ab­il­ity legis­la­tion in the post-Brex­it era, the pub­lic mood is chan­ging. How do you ensure that your busi­ness is a sus­tain­ab­il­ity lead­er, rather than on the back foot?

For the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy offers a new mod­el to rethink how products are designed and made, to truly con­nect eco­nom­ic and envir­on­ment­al gains. This means redesign­ing products so they last longer, so they can be repur­posed, reman­u­fac­tured and even shared. The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy aims to ensure mater­i­als and resources remain cir­cu­lat­ing in the eco­nomy for as long as pos­sible and at their highest value. With increas­ing interest nation­ally, as demon­strated by the inclu­sion of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy in the UK’s Indus­tri­al Strategy White Paper as a lever to increase pro­ductiv­ity, we want to make sure loc­al busi­nesses are aware of the con­cept and provided with the tools to sup­port them shift towards more sus­tain­able oper­at­ing mod­els.

Innov­a­tion in Man­u­fac­tur­ing: the Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Advant­age

• What? We’re offer­ing a free work­shop to provide an over­view of what the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy is all about, lead­ing industry prac­tices and prac­tic­al steps your busi­ness can take to become more pro­duct­ive and resource effi­cient.
• When? 13^th March 2018 9.30am – 12.30pm, Allia Future Busi­ness Centre Peter­bor­ough
• Who’s it for? Any organ­isa­tions with­in the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, or provid­ing ser­vices for man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­nesses…. or if you’re just inter­ested in the event! Organ­isa­tions with­in Peter­bor­ough, Fen­land, South Kesteven and the wider area are wel­come to attend.

Our excit­ing line-up of guest speak­ers will be cov­er­ing the latest innov­a­tions in sus­tain­able man­u­fac­tur­ing….

Tim Devon­shire – Per­kins

Per­kins has a strong his­tory of reman­u­fac­tur­ing products, Tim will be explain­ing how this provides their cus­tom­ers with lower-cost products and deliv­ers cost sav­ings for Per­kins through the reuse of mater­i­als.  Tim will also be talk­ing about optim­ising sys­tems, max­im­ising the use of mater­i­als and resources through­out a product’s life in order to cre­ate higher qual­ity products and reduce envir­on­ment­al impact.

Owain Grif­fiths – Oak­dene Hollins & the European Reman­u­fac­tur­ing Coun­cil

 At Oak­dene Hollins, Owain works with busi­nesses to improve the sus­tain­ab­il­ity and cir­cu­lar eco­nomy per­form­ance of their products. Owain will be talk­ing about how a shift towards more sus­tain­able prac­tices can have real busi­ness bene­fits. Owain will also be provid­ing an insight into their work estab­lish­ing the European Reman­u­fac­tur­ing Coun­cil and work­ing with glob­al busi­nesses.

 Alan Howard – Insti­tu­tion of Engin­eer­ing & Tech­no­logy (IET)

Alan will be talk­ing about the IET’s recent Sus­tain­able Man­u­fac­tur­ing report, which out­lines the ambi­tion for a post-Brex­it UK to cre­ate sig­ni­fic­ant social, eco­nom­ic and envir­on­ment­al impact. Alan will be mak­ing the con­cept of sus­tain­able man­u­fac­tur­ing real to busi­nesses by provid­ing action-ori­ented steps to deliv­er tan­gible impacts for micro-busi­nesses, SMEs and lar­ger com­pan­ies.

There will also be oppor­tun­it­ies to dis­cuss the exist­ing chal­lenges your busi­ness is facing and explor­ing these with a range of experts.

To sign up to the event, please use our Event­brite page: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/innovation-in-manufacturing-the-circular-economy-advantage-tickets-41974338376

If you have any fur­ther ques­tions, please feel free to email Katie.thomas@opportunitypeterborough.co.uk

Over 40 busi­ness del­eg­ates from organ­isa­tions across Peter­bor­ough have helped to define how the city can meas­ure its pro­gress towards cre­at­ing a Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy.

By adopt­ing cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic prin­ciples, the Depart­ment for Envir­on­ment, Food and Rur­al Affairs (DEFRA) cal­cu­lates that UK busi­nesses could bene­fit by up to £23 bil­lion per year through low cost or no cost improve­ments in the effi­cient use of resources.[1]

Facil­it­ated by the Future Peter­bor­ough pro­gram­me, dis­cus­sions at a recent work­shop centred around how the city and organ­isa­tions could improve under­stand­ing, facil­it­ate change and chart suc­cess with­in the 7 Rs — rethink, redesign, repair, reuse, reman­u­fac­ture, recycle and recov­er products and ser­vices. These are the sev­en pil­lars that form the found­a­tion of the Cir­cu­lar Peter­bor­ough Com­mit­ment.

This Com­mit­ment has set out the city’s approach to cre­at­ing a Cir­cu­lar Peter­bor­ough and is a Future Peter­bor­ough ini­ti­at­ive delivered by Oppor­tun­ity Peter­bor­ough and Peter­bor­ough City Coun­cil. Devel­op­ing a Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy means encour­aging col­lab­or­a­tion across the city to max­im­ise the life­cycle of products and ser­vices, help­ing organ­isa­tions save money by redu­cing waste, envir­on­ment­al impact and reli­ance on raw mater­i­als and nat­ur­al resources, whil­st mak­ing bet­ter use of our resources, mater­i­als, products, prop­er­ty and people.

Organ­isa­tions that took part in the work­shop included Queens­gate, Skanska, Allia, Per­kins, Cross Keys Homes, Wal­ters and AECOM.

Examples of pro­jects that con­trib­ute towards a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy that are already under­way in Peter­bor­ough include:

• Cross Keys Homes’ Food Cycle pro­ject which uses excess food from loc­al super­mar­kets and stores to com­bat food pover­ty.
• Share Peter­bor­ough, a free busi­ness to busi­ness online shar­ing plat­form that is help­ing organ­isa­tions in the city to share resources.
• Regen­er­a­tion work at the Rail­world Wild­life Haven reused and repur­posed items – like using scrap metal pipes to build hand­rails and old aque­ducts to cre­ate walk­ways.

Del­eg­ates were joined by The Ellen MacAr­thur Found­a­tion, a glob­al thought-lead­ing char­ity work­ing with decision makers in busi­ness, gov­ern­ment and aca­demia to drive the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy agenda. Peter­bor­ough is part of the Foundation’s exclus­ive Cir­cu­lar Cit­ies Net­work which includes New York, Rio de Janeiro and Copen­ha­gen.

Julia Vol, Port­fo­lio Man­ager from the Ellen MacAr­thur Found­a­tion said, “It was inspir­ing to see how a small city such as Peter­bor­ough is tak­ing big steps to intro­duce a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy approach, look­ing to strengthen the loc­al busi­ness com­munity and improve qual­ity of life for the city’s res­id­ents.”

Steve Bow­yer, Chief Exec­ut­ive of Oppor­tun­ity Peter­bor­ough said, “The work­shop has provided some prac­tic­al steps for the Future Peter­bor­ough team in how we meas­ure the city’s pro­gress towards cre­at­ing a Cir­cu­lar Peter­bor­ough and we’re grate­ful to all the busi­nesses, and organ­isa­tions such as the Ellen MacAr­thur Found­a­tion, who con­trib­uted their time and expert­ise.

“Hav­ing a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy could save busi­nesses thou­sands of pounds by max­im­ising their use of resources whil­st sig­ni­fic­antly improv­ing busi­ness effi­ciency and redu­cing envir­on­ment­al impact. Organ­isa­tions may already be doing a lot with­in the 7Rs and we want to build on the expert­ise and good prac­tice already in place with­in Peter­bor­ough to max­im­ise oppor­tun­it­ies.”

[1] http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/wraps-vision-uk-circular-economy-2020

City organ­isa­tions includ­ing Roy­al Haskon­ing DHV, Skanska, Viridor and Coca Cola, Free Think­ing, I3 Media and Rail­world, today atten­ded a sign­ing cere­mony com­mit­ting sup­port to cre­ate a Cir­cu­lar Peter­bor­ough by 2050.

Cir­cu­lar Peter­bor­ough, a Future Peter­bor­ough ini­ti­at­ive, delivered by Oppor­tun­ity Peter­bor­ough and Peter­bor­ough City Coun­cil, encour­ages col­lab­or­at­ive work­ing across the city to max­im­ise the life­cycle of products and ser­vices, driv­ing great­er resource pro­ductiv­ity, redu­cing envir­on­ment­al impact and address­ing declin­ing nat­ur­al resource issues in the future.

The Cir­cu­lar Peter­bor­ough Com­mit­ment sets out an approach: rethink­ing; redesign­ing; repair­ing; repur­pos­ing, reusing and shar­ing; reman­u­fac­tur­ing; recyc­ling and recov­er­ing products and ser­vices – the 7 Rs which enables the city to make the most of loc­al resources, sup­port eco­nom­ic resi­li­ence, develop strong com­munit­ies and increase envir­on­ment­al sus­tain­ab­il­ity.  Organ­isa­tions who have signed the com­mit­ment are act­ively involved in devel­op­ing pilot pro­jects and ini­ti­at­ives which encour­age a more sus­tain­able approach to busi­ness in our city.

Steve Bow­yer, Chief Exec­ut­ive of Oppor­tun­ity Peter­bor­ough and Pro­ject Dir­ect­or of the Future Cit­ies Pro­gram­me said ‘Put simply, if we con­tin­ue to use resources at the cur­rent rate, we will need three plan­ets worth to sup­port future gen­er­a­tions.  Cre­at­ing a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy here in Peter­bor­ough starts at grass­roots with city busi­nesses com­mit­ting to rethink the way they oper­ate’.

Paul Row­land, Region­al Man­ager for Viridor added of the com­mit­ment: “Peter­bor­ough is at the fore­front of devel­op­ing a more resource effi­cient UK. As a city we must look to reduce the amount of waste we pro­duce, recycle as much as pos­sible and then at the Energy Recov­ery Facil­ity we work closely with Peter­bor­ough City Coun­cil to trans­form what res­id­ents throw away in their bins into power­ing homes in the city along with sup­port­ing loc­al busi­nesses to divert waste away from land­fill. By com­mit­ting to the Cir­cu­lar Peter­bor­ough ini­ti­at­ive we will be able to sup­port the City as it grows in the future devel­op­ing a more resi­li­ent and suc­cess­ful place to live.”