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<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/partners-for-a-sustainable-future"></a></p><div type="image" title="woman sitting in office chairs" height="969" width="1292" msid="87004873" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>Tons of <keyword id="12307709" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="office-furniture" source="Orion">office furniture</keyword> ends up in landfills, and it's getting worse as workplaces go remote.</li><li>Companies like Green Standards and Reseat sell, <keyword id="12054541" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="recycle" source="Orion">recycle</keyword>, or donate the unwanted furniture instead.</li><li>Green Standards helps offices downsize sustainably, and Reseat is a used furniture marketplace.</li></ul><p>Almost 10 million tons of furniture and furnishings end up in landfills each year, according to 2018 data from the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/durable-goods-product-specific-data#FurnitureandFurnishings">US Environmental Protection Agency</a>. Experts told Insider a large portion of that is office furniture and predict the problem will get worse as more companies rethink their workspaces post-pandemic. </p><p>Nearly 90% of executives plan to shift their office real-estate strategies in the next year as they go fully or partially remote, according to a recent <a href="https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/covid-19/us-remote-work-survey.html">PwC survey</a>. This includes consolidating office space and opening smaller locations. </p><p>"It's going to have an impact on the amount of furniture coming out of buildings because companies are making decisions that are going to change the layouts of their workplaces," <a href="https://greenstandardsltd.com/clean50/">Trevor Langdon</a>, president of <a href="https://greenstandardsltd.com/about-us/">Green Standards</a>, told Insider.</p><p>Green Standards works with businesses across the globe to donate, resell, and recycle office furniture. Similar companies, like preowned office furniture marketplace <a href="https://reseat.com/">Reseat</a>, are helping companies buy and sell used furniture and keep it out of landfills. Here's a look at how exactly they partner with outside organizations to reduce waste and promote <keyword id="11896309" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="sustainability" source="Orion">sustainability</keyword>.</p><h2>Green Standards shows the impact of furniture resale and donations on the environment</h2><p>Green Standards, which has worked with <a href="https://greenstandardsltd.com/case-studies/general-motors/">General Motors</a>, <a href="https://greenstandardsltd.com/case-studies/united-airlines-ecoskies-donate-furniture-in-houston/">United Airlines</a>, and <a href="https://greenstandardsltd.com/case-studies/expedia-group/">Expedia Group</a>, uses an assessment to decide whether reselling or donating an office's items is the best fit. It then facilitates donations by identifying nonprofits, such as schools or charities, that could use the items and handles the removal and delivery of the furniture.</p><div type="image" title="office furniture packed up in piles" height="1706" width="2275" msid="87004875" hostid="261"></div><p>Social-media management company <a href="https://www.hootsuite.com/">Hootsuite</a> recently <a href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/hidden-costs-downsizing-office-space/">redesigned its workspaces</a> in Vancouver, London, and Bucharest, replacing rows of desks and large conference tables with standing desks and comfortable, upholstered seating to offer work-from-home employees a place to collaborate. Instead of throwing away unused items, Hootsuite donated about 80% of the leftover furniture to community organizations through a partnership with Green Standards.</p><p>"We had an opportunity to have all this perfectly good office furniture that just didn't meet our needs anymore go to somebody who could use it," <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-waldmann-1b462046/">Carol Waldmann</a>, Hootsuite's director of global facilities and real estate, told Insider. "It just made sense to try to find a new home for it rather than throwing it in the trash."</p><p>Though he wouldn't provide exact figures, Langdon said the cost of Green Standards' services is the same or less than hiring liquidators to remove furniture, most of which gets dumped in a landfill. He said his company has a 99% landfill diversion rate for the furniture they encounter and has arranged more than $32 million in donations. </p><div type="image" title="a high school classroom" height="2000" width="2666" msid="87004880" hostid="261"></div><p>Green Standards also provides companies with a report that shows how much office furniture they diverted from a landfill and how it reduced their carbon footprint. For example, Waldmann said Hootsuite's project equated to reducing gas consumption by 7,200 gallons and offset electricity use for nine homes for a year. </p><p>"I would love more organizations to look at how they can support communities that they're in and just try to find ways to reduce their impact on the environment," she said. "It's a powerful tool for all of us to help reduce the impact of climate change as much as we can."</p><h2><strong>Reseat turns 'waste' into profit for businesses</strong></h2><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandi-susewitz-/">Brandi Susewitz</a> founded Reseat (formerly Clear Office) last year to help companies buy and sell used office furniture. She's worked in the office furniture industry for more than 20 years and saw the need for a solution to its waste problem. </p><p>Reseat has worked with organizations like Uber, Oracle, and GoDaddy, as well as with real-estate brokers, interior designers, architects, and company leaders to furnish a space with pre-owned items. Susewitz said the company is growing and will close its first year with about $3 million in revenue. Recently, it also added Reseat ID, a "second life-cycle passport" that will be issued with each purchase and include a company's furniture drawings, specifications, layouts, fabrics, and quantities to help them later resell the items more efficiently.</p><p>Companies can handle the resale process - including uploading photos and delivering items - themselves and keep 70% of profits, or let Reseat handle everything for them and keep 10% of the sales.</p><p>Susewitz said the problem of office furniture waste is at its worst. She hopes her platform will make it easier for organizations to be proactive in reducing waste.</p><p>When designing its first office in San Francisco recently, <a href="https://www.moderntreasury.com/">Modern Treasury</a>, a payment-operations software company, worked with Reseat to purchase about 100 sitting and standing desks, as well as sideboards, tables, and soft seating, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelcpike/">Rachel Pike</a>, Modern Treasury's chief growth officer, told Insider. With recent supply-chain issues, she said pre-owned furniture can often be obtained more quickly.</p><p>"There's just no reason to buy something new when you have exactly the same thing that's perfect and ready to go," she said.</p>

How 2 organizations are helping offices reduce waste by selling or donating their furniture

<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/partners-for-a-sustainable-future"></a></p><div type="image" title="the TerraCycle building with a green wall and logo" height="3648" width="4864" msid="86843135" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>TerraCycle is a company that specializes in <keyword id="12063226" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="recycling" source="Orion">recycling</keyword> non-conventional materials, like chewing gum.</li><li>It partners with businesses to reduce their waste and offers many different recycling options.</li><li>There's also an option for individuals to partner with TerraCycle to <keyword id="12054541" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="recycle" source="Orion">recycle</keyword> things like diapers.</li></ul><p>When Casey Dworkin founded luxury shoe brand <a href="https://sylvennewyork.com/">Sylven New York</a> in 2017, she wanted <keyword id="11896309" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="sustainability" source="Orion">sustainability</keyword> to be a top priority not just for her business but also for anyone she partnered with. So she took steps to ensure her products and their packaging were made with environmentally friendly materials and in ethical factories.</p><div type="image" title="headshot of Casey Dworkin in black and white" height="1056" width="1408" msid="86843136" hostid="261"></div><p>Then in 2019, she partnered with <a href="https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/">TerraCycle</a>, a business that specializes in recycling non-conventional materials. TerraCycle melts down waste, pelletizes it, and shapes it to be repurposed into anything from shipping pallets to park benches.</p><p>"While the vast majority of recycling companies tend to concentrate on traditional waste streams like aluminum, paper, or specific types of plastic, TerraCycle has made a name for itself in recycling 'the unrecyclable,'" Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, told Insider. "This type of hard-to-recycle waste takes the form of virtually anything from cigarette butts to plastic snack packaging to used chewing gum."</p><p>Here's a look at how TerraCycle helps companies like Sylven recycle their products.</p><h2>Recycling for businesses and products of all shapes and sizes</h2><div type="image" title="the outside of the TerraCycle building with a tire display" height="800" width="1066" msid="86843137" hostid="261"></div><p>TerraCycle offers different options to its partners, depending on the size and needs of the brand:</p><ul><li><strong>Zero waste box:</strong> This is what Dworkin and many other small-business owners use. Szaky calls it a "turnkey, all-inclusive recycling solution for hundreds of typically non-recycled items, from coffee capsules to the entire contents of your bathroom." </li><li><strong>Mail-in envelope recycling programs:</strong> These are typically for mid-sized brands with products that can fit in mailable envelope pouches.</li><li><strong>Brand-sponsored national recycling programs:</strong> This option is for large-scale businesses that have a substantial amount of products to recycle. Companies that opt for this program also receive assistance from TerraCycle with social-media engagement and press outreach designed to drive consumer awareness of the policies. </li></ul><p>Brands interested in integrating TerraCycle into their operations work with their business development team to develop a custom program and learn what their product may be turned into. "I'm sending them one of my shoes so that they can actually analyze the different components within it and give me a breakdown of exactly how each item and how each material can be recycled," Dworkin, who used to create shoes with Italian leather but recently switched to apple leather, said.</p><div type="image" title="a black shoe propped up by apples on a red table" height="2676" width="3568" msid="86843138" hostid="261"></div><p>Her products are likely to be converted into material placed under playgrounds. "I don't have shoes that are at the end of their product life, but my goal was to set a system in place so that when that time comes, we can be as responsible about their end life as possible," Dworkin added.</p><p>TerraCycle works with third-party subcontracting facilities for processing and conversion work and a network of end users who implement the recycled material into their end-products, Skazy said. In one instance, TerraCycle partnered with Head &amp; Shoulders to create the first recyclable shampoo bottle out of beach plastic.</p><h2>Individuals can recycle almost anything, from diapers to 3D materials</h2><div type="image" title="plastic bottles used as decoration in the TerraCycle office" height="873" width="1164" msid="86843139" hostid="261"></div><p>While TerraCycle focuses on helping businesses, they also have options for individuals looking to recycle beyond paper and plastic products. Once a person makes a TerraCycle account, they have the opportunity to send in waste by purchasing specific product boxes to ship in or utilize a local drop-off location.</p><p>"I'm almost doing it on a consumer level," Dworkin said. "I'm essentially purchasing their boxes that you use for footwear specifically, and I'll be filling it and sending it to them."</p><p>Pricing for these boxes range based on what a person wants to recycle. For example, boxes for 3D printing materials start at $149. Alternatively, a box for diaper and waste packaging begins at $72 for the same size. These price variations account for the cost of shipping and recycling the specific item.</p><p>Individuals shopping from brands who partner with TerraCycle can return their ready-to-be-recycled products to the company they purchased from. The brand then adds it to their pre-purchased containers to send to TerraCycle. </p><p>"During the lockdown, individuals also became more conscious of the volume of waste generated by themselves and their families. People had more time to think about the products they used, the amount of waste they were producing, and viable solutions for the packaging," Szaky said.</p><h2>Keeping the environment top of mind</h2><p>In August, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change released a <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf">report</a> stating that human influence has "unequivocally" warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land. </p><p>"Now more than ever, consumers expect the brands they support to be as committed to their mission as they are to their actual products and are demanding that companies be transparent about their sustainability efforts," Szaky said. He believes that a brand partnering with TerraCycle shows its customers that they're taking actionable steps to fight climate change. </p><p>As Dworkin scales up her business, she hopes to create custom systems with TerraCycle. "Before recycling, we always promote care and repair," she said.</p><p>She speaks with admiration for the steps in place for bigger shoe and apparel brands TerraCycle's partnered with, especially the analysis of each product to determine the most energy and cost-efficient methods of recycling each material.</p><p>"There's a lot of opportunities for us to make custom solutions further down the road," Dworkin said. "It's super dependent on the specific materials that they're looking at. So because my materials are so specific, it'll be really cool to see exactly what solutions are possible."</p>

How one company partners with brands to recycle 'unrecyclable' items and give them a second life

<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/partners-for-a-sustainable-future"></a></p><div type="image" title="New Belgium Brewing Company employees 2013" height="3240" width="4335" msid="86492855" hostid="261"></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11922170" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="brewing" source="Orion">Brewing</keyword> <keyword id="12110924" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="beer" source="Orion">beer</keyword> requires a significant amount of resources, including water, and creates waste.</li><li>The Brewers Association offers <keyword id="11896309" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="sustainability" source="Orion">sustainability</keyword> tools to breweries to improve the process all around.</li><li>Breweries that use the tools reduced their carbon emissions and water consumption and saved money.</li></ul><p>Protecting the environment is a high priority for many independent beer brewers - yet it's no secret that beer brewing uses significant resources and creates waste. </p><p>It can take as many as <a href="https://www.brewersassociation.org/attachments/0001/1517/Sustainability_-_Water_Wastewater.pdf">seven barrels of water to make one barrel of beer</a>. Beer also requires a <a href="https://www.brewersassociation.org/attachments/0001/1530/Sustainability_Energy_Manual.pdf">significant amount of heat</a> during the brewing process and refrigeration soon after it's made, contributing to energy waste - not to mention, the beer-making process produces plenty of <a href="https://academicjournals.org/journal/JBD/article-full-text-pdf/0E6313746212">wastewater and leftover grain</a>. </p><p>Over the last six years, however, brewers have been leveraging sustainability tools created by the <a href="https://www.brewersassociation.org/">Brewers Association</a>, which represents around 5,400 small and independent member brewers - about half of the approximately 8,764 craft breweries in the United States.</p><div type="image" title="headshot of Chuck Skypeck holding beer on the steps" height="1201" width="1601" msid="86492861" hostid="261"></div>Brewers that used the tool for four or five years consistently reduced their carbon emissions and water consumption and also saved money, Chuck Skypeck, the BA's technical brewing projects manager, told Insider. Breweries that submitted five years of consecutive data showed a steady natural-resource efficiency improvement of 1% to 2% per year, he said.<p>Horse &amp; Dragon Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colorado, is one of the breweries working with the BA to become more sustainable by using a benchmarking tool the BA developed to help breweries measure their energy and water use, carbon emissions, and costs for disposing of wastewater and used grains. </p><p>"We're trying to chip away at this in small ways," Carol Cochran, co-owner of Horse &amp; Dragon and a member of the BA Sustainability Subcommittee, told Insider. Just the mere act of measuring usage is helping breweries to use less energy and resources, she said. </p><p>Knowing your water usage per barrel of beer compared to a similarly sized brewery gives owners a starting point for change. "If you're way above, you can dig in and find out why or consult with other breweries in your size and area," she said.</p><h2><strong>A sustainability challenge for smaller breweries</strong></h2><p>For smaller breweries like Horse &amp; Dragon, which will produce less than 3,000 barrels of beer this year, it can be difficult to reach the level of sustainability that larger, more efficient breweries can achieve. </p><div type="image" title="headshot of Carol Cochran" height="703" width="937" msid="86492867" hostid="261"></div><p>For example, not every brewery can install large solar panels to offset energy use, Skypeck said. Smaller breweries like Horse &amp; Dragon, rather, typically focus on LED use or installing a more efficient compressor to reduce energy consumption. </p><p>"About 7,500 of the BA members are brewing tiny amounts of beer on a shoestring," Cochran said. "We don't have the bandwidth to do the type of research the BA funds." </p><p>BA membership also gives brewers like Cochran access to lessons learned by larger brewers such as New Belgium Brewing, also in Fort Collins, which brews more than 800,000 barrels of beer each year. New Belgium is an industry leader in sustainability, claiming its Fat Tire beer is the <a href="http://www.ismybeersustainable.com/">only certified carbon-neutral brew</a>.</p><p>Larger brewers can capture emissions and reuse them to carbonate beer or during the canning or bottling process, but there aren't any systems designed yet for small-scale capture, and the technology that's available would require small brewers to use too much energy, Skypeck said. </p><div type="image" title="New Belgium Brewing" height="384" width="512" msid="86492869" hostid="261"></div><p>"We've learned that every brewery has individual challenges, and that if every brewer can start to measure what they're doing, they can identify where to make incremental changes," Skypeck said. </p><p>He admitted that some of the BA's recommendations are simple, such as putting the brewery's lights on a timer to avoid using energy when no one's there or finding a local farm to take the brewery's used gain to use for composting and feeding livestock. But for brewers like Horse &amp; Dragon, those small incremental changes add up over time.</p><h2><strong>Embracing water conservation</strong></h2><p>With the BA's assistance, Horse &amp; Dragon has reduced its water usage by 36.46%, Cochran said. </p><p>"Water is our primary focus right now, despite it being our least expensive one, simply because of the shortages we see and hear about in the West," Cochran said. "We're constantly looking for affordable ways to conserve, reuse, and bolster the health of our watershed." </p><p>The US west is in a historic drought, and in August, the US government declared <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-declares-first-colorado-river-shortage-arizona-nevada-water-cuts-2021-8">a water shortage on the Colorado River</a>, impacting water supplies in Nevada and Arizona. The city of Fort Collins is even under a <a href="https://www.fcgov.com/utilities/water-restrictions">water-shortage watch</a>.</p><p>Water is the main ingredient in beer, accounting for up to 95% of its content. In addition, water is used throughout the brewing process for cleaning, cooling, and packaging.</p><p>Rather than just send water down the drain, the BA is teaching breweries to collect clean water and find other uses for it.</p><p>When Cochran and her husband Tim were building the brewery, they consulted a larger BA member and were advised to buy an oversized hot liquor tank to capture and reuse all of the water used in the cooling process. That water travels through a heat exchanger to the hot liquor tank and is ready to be used when brewing the next batch or cleaning the tanks, she said. The brewery also collects clean water from a steam drip line on the hot liquor tank and uses it to water trees on the property.</p><p>Skypeck also wants brewers to consider the quality of the water they use. The Fort Collins watershed has had two major forest fires, and when runoff hits the burn areas, it can affect the water quality, he said.</p><p>Horse &amp; Dragon is a member of <a href="https://brewater.com/">BreWater</a>, 15 Fort Collins breweries focused on local water issues, including teaching the local community how to protect the local watershed.</p><h2><strong>Reducing energy use beyond LED lights</strong></h2><p>In addition to installing LED lights, Horse &amp; Dragon has been offsetting 100% of its energy usage since 2016 by purchasing wind power from <a href="https://www.arcadia.com/">Arcadia Power</a>. The brewery also reduced its energy footprint by committing to use locally sourced malt and barley, eliminating the need to truck supplies from other areas. </p><p>Yet, despite these efforts, as the brewery's production has increased, so has its energy consumption. "Our average monthly energy usage has increased by 10%, and we're looking at additional ways to curb it for both the environmental bottom line and the financial one - it's the most expensive of our utilities," Cochran said.</p><h2>Buying local</h2><p>The goal is for all its beers to be made with 100% local ingredients, but Cochran admitted that it's a difficult financial calculation. While some sustainability efforts, such as using less water or generating less waste, save the brewery money, other efforts - like buying malt and barley from a local producer - cost 50% to 60% more than bulk grain from big suppliers.</p><p>"Unless every brewer is required to do the same, it is a hard financial decision to make," Cochran said. "We're still selling our product for a similar price as other breweries that aren't doing these things." </p><p>Most brewers are reluctant to promote their sustainability efforts to consumers. "I think you run a risk of opening yourself up to legitimate criticism if you brag about the types of incremental changes you made," Cochran said.</p><p>Make no mistake, Skypeck said, those small incremental changes are important. "The most sustainable way to consume a beer is in a glass that you're going to use and wash and use again," he said. In fact, he said, more than 65% of BA members don't package their beer; they just sell beer onsite at their taproom.</p>

How the Brewers Association is helping independent breweries reduce their carbon footprint and cut costs

<p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Adidas</span></p><p class="caption">The Adidas Futurecraft Loop sneaker, made out of 100% recycled material.</p><ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/adidas">Adidas</a> is at the forefront of sustainable footwear design as the first retailer to develop a sneaker made with 100% recycled materials that is also fully recyclable, called the Futurecraft Loop. </li><li>Business Insider sat down with Dharan Kirupanantham, senior manager of future technology innovation at Adidas, to learn more about the development process and the challenges of scaling such a product to get it into the hands of consumers. </li><li>"The idea is that we want to democratize sustainability," Kirupanantham said. "Whatever we do, it may start with one shoe or 200 pairs of shoes, unless it's accessible, it's not really a sustainability effort." </li><li><a href="http://newsletter.businessinsider.com/join/4np/drivethru">Sign up for Business Insider's retail newsletter, The Drive-Thru.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul><p>On any given day in the Future department at the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/adidas">Adidas</a> headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, the team is hard at work on everything from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sneakers-recyclable-track-steps-in-the-future-2019-7">engineering 3D-printed shoes</a> and improving recycled material technology to <a href="https://news.adidas.com/running/adidas-announces-partnership-to-explore-the-boundaries-of-innovation-on-the-international-space-stat/s/3f8cec9d-80ca-43f3-95cb-cf2b04263d51">designing footwear for astronauts</a>. </p><p>Over the past several years, Adidas has solidified itself as a leader not only in product innovation, but also in sustainable design. Last month, the retailer launched the second generation of its Futurecraft Loop sneaker, the first-of-its-kind performance running shoe made from 100% recycled material that is also fully recyclable. The new model comes after the shoe first debuted in April and took seven years to perfect, according to Dharan Kirupanantham, senior manager of future technology innovation at Adidas.</p><p>For now, the futuristic shoe remains in beta mode as a limited distribution is being tested in major cities around the world. An anticipated public launch is slated for 2021. Part of the challenge, Kirupanantham said, has been developing the technology and procurement processes necessary to not only manufacture such a shoe, but also to scale it effectively. </p><p>"The idea is that we want to democratize sustainability," Kirupanantham told Business Insider. "Whatever we do, it may start with one shoe or 200 pairs of shoes, unless it's accessible, it's not really a sustainability effort." </p><p>We sat down with Kirupanantham during his recent visit to the Adidas New York office to learn more about his vision for innovation and sustainability at Adidas. </p><p><em>The following interview was lightly edited for length and clarity. </em></p><p><strong>Business Insider: </strong>There's been quite a bit of buzz building around the Futurecraft Loop. What exactly is so special about this  shoe? </p><p><strong>Dharan Kirupanantham: </strong>The cool thing is it's one single material - most shoes typically use 12 to 15 different types of materials. One of the key elements is that the Futurecraft Loop contains no glue. We used a new manufacturing process to produce this, and in April the idea that we brought to the fray was we wanted to end plastic waste in our industry. Since then, we've been working hard to actually demonstrate that.</p><p>The second generation of Futurecraft continues the story and shows that we've actually been able to produce not just new products from old shoes, but also a high-performance running shoe. It's a running shoe that people can actually use.</p><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Adidas</span></p><p class="caption">The Futurecraft Loop was designed for high-performance activities like running.</p><p><strong>BI:</strong> I know factors like eschewing glue and identifying sustainable color-dying processes can be fairly challenging on the manufacturing side. How were you able to master that? </p><p><strong>Kirupanantham: </strong>That took some work and it's been seven-plus years in development of this concept. We needed some of these other technologies to come into frame and be commercialized to be able to get to that. That was critical.</p><p>For dyes, we use a solution dying process and add the pigment as the fiber is being spun. So you have these pellets, and you add color into that process. As the pellets are being squeezed through - it's almost like making Play-Doh spaghetti - you can see the color changing from a natural color to the dye. </p><p><strong>BI: </strong>Beyond Adidas brainpower, what other types of resources did you consult during the design and development stages?</p><p><strong>Kirupanantham: </strong>We have this open source mantra where we try and do everything with experts in that field. So we don't necessarily try and be the experts in recycling, instead we worked with companies like BASF to identify recycling technology that enabled us to take shoes back and to shred and essentially re-pelletize them. That step is really critical because we have a tailored process that makes sure that the material doesn't get downgraded.</p><p><strong>BI: </strong>How difficult is it to scale these types of products?</p><p><strong>Kirupanantham: </strong>Every new technology has its own challenges in regards to scaling. I think the uniqueness here around the circular economy is we can't scale until we put product out and we get consumers to bring those products back. One of the elements that needs to be really addressed in order to scale is the logistics around take-back and the interaction with the consumers.</p><p class="source"><span>Adidas</span></p><p><strong>BI: </strong>It sounds like there will be a bit of a learning curve. How do you plan to raise awareness around the recycling and take-back process? </p><p><strong>Kirupanantham: </strong>That's something where we're trying to learn as we're still in beta mode. Part of the exploration is to understand how do we not just put product out there and develop the technologies, but also get capital back. We have different mechanisms in each city to get product back, and we're learning from each of those. Some worked well, some worked less well.</p><p>This is not just a technical innovation. We also have to innovate in terms of behavior and how consumers respond or interact. It's a catalyst for change in regards to not just the innovation, but also the behavior of the consumer.</p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-alibaba-founder-jack-ma-makes-and-spends-his-billions-2019-11">Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma is the richest man in China - here's how he spends his $38 billion net worth</a></h3>

You Searched For "basf plastics" and got 4 results

How 2 organizations are helping offices reduce waste by selling or donating their furniture

Erica Sweeney

How one company partners with brands to recycle 'unrecyclable' items and give them a second life

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How the Brewers Association is helping independent breweries reduce their carbon footprint and cut costs

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Adidas innovation exec on how the company created a fully recyclable sneaker over 7 years - and how it's thinking about the shoe of the future

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