Name: How Digital Is a Game-Changer for the Circular Economy
Uploaded: 2017-01-17
Duration: 3 min 52 s
Description: Accenture Strategy's Peter Lacy explains

Peter, maybe to start for people that don't know, a very brief description and definition of the circular economy. The circular economy is all about decoupling models of growth from scarce or harmful natural resources. At the global level, that's really thinking through the flows of natural resources through our economy But at the micro level it's about decoupling the value you deliver to customers, the products, services from that scarce and harmful use of natural resources. Good and what role does digital play in that? Well, increasingly digital is becoming a game changer for sustainability and it's becoming a game changer for circular economy for a number of different reasons. On the one hand, if you look at the internet of things. You look at census technologies. We're able to track and trace the flow of materials through global value chains. Not just big expensive items like cars. But even consumer packaging that allows us to think carefully about how to close the loop. That's one example. Yep. Other examples, more disruptive examples potentially in certain industries like construction, 3D printing. Where you're actually taking local materials, turning them into, for example I was in [ UNKNOWN ] recently in China, they were printing five story houses, right? And actually cutting out this need for global supply chains, the movement of resources around the planet, the carbon emissions. Which uses fossil fuels, expends electricity, [ UNKNOWN ] and so. Absolutely, it's becoming a game changer. So the notion that it's digital is one of harnessing the power of networks and computers to analyze mixed market decisions, reduce wastes. Exactly that. Big data, analytics, Be able to help us to understand how we move materials more effectively with high levels of productivity through the economy >> And what about sort of dark side of this, we get so efficient using computers, that we do away with the humans doing jobs .>> I think, one of the biggest and I think most unbalanced narrative in the last couple of years. is this idea that somehow the fourth Industrial Revolution digital tech technologies means that we're all going to be out on our ear. Were all losing our jobs. There's studies that say 49 % of people are going to be replaced by robots by 2025. When we look at that, for example we lead the WEFs digital transformation of industries program here, and were launching that this week. You know, what we find it it's a much more nuanced picture. There are certain tasks, certain jobs that will be replaced. That we can have far more productivity from [ UNKNOWN ]. But in many cases it's about augmentation of individuals. So it's about enabling people to do things that they wouldn't have been able to do previously, taking the drudgery out of certain tasks. An example Those being used in the environment. So if you look at EADS Airbus, rather than going down the route of automating their manufacturing lines and their engineering, they're augmenting those workers. They have roadblocks that work with them. Big data and analytics, Google Glasses, to enable them to do things they couldn't have previously done. Last question. There's a sort of when I hear the expression circular economy, circulars, I feel there's an element of Of do gooderism. Of you know, let's all join our arms together and make the planet a better place. Which I think it is. Yeah. But? Well I'm totally uninterested in the do gooderism side of circular economy personally. I'm a strife and strategy guy, pure, through and through. And for me, the whole, the really interesting part of circular economy is how you You use it to create a better product, to create a better customer experience, to drive productivity in terms of your natural resources using your product and to that end you know the research the waited loss year show you that just. 2030. We think there's a $ 4. 5 trillion global marketplace for circular economy products and services. So that's a real prize for businesses to go after. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]