Green Logistics and Reverse Logistics Quiz

Circular Economy in Business

• Companies are adopting circular economy strategies to recover resources in production, including RECOVER-E, CLARITY, and MUJIKA.
• Business models for resource recovery include recaptured material suppliers, refurbishers, second-hand sellers, remanufacturers, and recycling facilities.

Value Hill Process

• The Value Hill process categorizes products by pre-, in-, and post-use lifecycle phases to attach value and generate strategies for circular economy implementation.
• The process helps businesses identify opportunities for value recovery.

Benefits of Circular Economy

• Embracing recovery strategies reduces waste disposal costs and mitigates supply chain risks.
• The circular economy is seen as a sustainable and resilient solution, increasing competitiveness and anticipating regulations.

Circular Finance

• Circular finance is in its early stages, mainly supported by public investment.
• Funds have increased from USD 0.3 billion to 9.5 billion from 2019 to 2021.
• More transparent and consistent data on circularity performance and benefits are needed to facilitate decision-making.

Practical Examples

• Tesco has transformed its approach to plastic packaging, reducing waste and increasing sustainability.
• Home Depot offers reverse logistics support for online purchases, reducing waste and improving customer experience.
• Levi Strauss uses reverse logistics to improve sustainability in textiles, reusing jeans or recovering fibers to produce new products.
• Kohl's collaborates with Amazon to accept and process returns, reducing waste and improving sustainability.

Consumption and End-of-Life

• The consumption stage involves the demand, use, and disposal of products.
• The end-of-life stage involves sorting and recycling waste.
• In the plastic sector, the linear flow of plastic through the value chain is a significant source of CO2 emissions and environmental pollution.

Plastic Waste Management

• In 2020, 23% of post-consumer plastic waste was sent to landfill, while 42% was used for energy recovery and 35% was recycled.
• The circular economy aims to promote plastic reuse and recycling, reducing waste and pollution.
• The focus should be on establishing a circular plastic economy, considering design, usage, and legislation.

Plastic Value Chain

• The plastic value chain involves design, production, use, and waste management phases.
• Modifications to the plastic value chain are proposed to promote closed-loop recycling.
• The European Union encourages the efficient use of resources and reduction of waste through the waste hierarchy.

Global Plastic Sector

• By 2015, approximately 8.3 billion metric tons of virgin plastic had been consumed, resulting in around 6.3 billion metric tons of waste.
• Only 9% of plastic waste has been successfully recycled, while 79% has ended up in landfills.
• If current trends continue, 12,000 million tonnes of plastic products will end up in landfills or the environment by 2050.