Value Retention - Insight from Peter Lee
As part of our communications on the topic of Value Retention, we decided it would be incredibly useful to share input from the experts on our team. The first to do so is Peter Lee, our Head of Operations. With 22 years consulting experience at Oakdene Hollins - including, but not limited to, designing lean systems and waste management and prevention strategies - Peter is the prime choice to kick us off. The following questions, and (crucially) responses, draw out his background, expertise and inform us on the origin and application of Value Retention.
Why did you initially gravitate towards sustainability?
It was a natural progression from my academic background and interest in manufacturing systems engineering and, more specifically, lean manufacturing or lean thinking. Both sustainability and lean have the basic principle of doing more with less and breaking the link between consumption and production.
How long have you been in the circular economy?
The real question is how long have the components that constitute it been around! If I had to specify how long I had been working on elements of the circular economy – around 21 years.
It is one of those terms where many of the underlying principles and tools pre-date the term, e.g. waste prevention, remanufacturing, recycling, etc – much in the same way as lean. What makes circular economy more distinctive is that, much like lean, the term encapsulates these tools and principles in a way that turns activities or approaches into philosophies, making them more impactful.
How long have you worked for Oakdene Hollins?
I started at Oakdene Hollins in 1998 and was recruited to run the ‘Aylesbury Vale waste reduction in industry scheme’. The company had been in operation for 4 years prior and had predominantly focused on waste management consultancy. The two owners saw the scheme as a means of broadening the product offering of the company and expanding into sustainability and environmental consultancy.
The scheme began at the same time as the Sir John Harvey Jones’ (the Gordon Ramsey of his time!) ‘Troubleshooter’ was on television, but I wouldn’t say I had any of his traits…although I must admit to finding his TV show to be compelling viewing.
Note from the editor: If, like me, you’re too young to remember this show (or to have ever heard this man’s name before) – this should clue you in.
What is your expertise?
I would say that my background in lean means that I do take a systematic approach to problem solving and this can be applied across a broad spectrum of problems. This can be seen when viewing the projects I have worked on in my over 20 years with Oakdene Hollins - from quantifying the business benefits of resource efficiency across the whole UK economy for Defra, implementing improvements in SMEs and even more recently working with increasing numbers of private sector clients to help them deliver quantified improvements that fall under the banner of circular economy.
What is the history behind the term ‘Value Retention’ from your perspective? When did you first hear the term ‘Value Retention’ and in what context?
The French term ‘valorisation’ has been coined for many years but in many cases was used very loosely to mean any End of Life (EoL) process that enabled a level of value to be retained. However, for me, it was the UN Environment ‘Redefining Value’ report of 2018 that clearly and succinctly spelled out the true meaning of the term.
I was particularly interested in the graphic summarising value retention processes within the context of End of Use (EoU) and End of Life (Figure 3 page 20). This clearly demonstrates the benefits of the various interventions, such as, remanufacturing and repair.
What does ‘Value Retention’ mean to you?
I like the division or partitioning of interventions into EoU and EoL activities since it enables the stakeholders at their relative stage in the life cycle to better understand what it is they can do to effect value retention. Far too many products do not have an EoU phase, this is simply by-passed by the owner with the product being deemed of no value and hence at its EoL. We only need to see the statistics on how many electronic products are scrapped in full working order to see how significant this issue can be.
How have you put the framework into practice?
We have recently produced our own graphic to interpret the division between EoU and EoL interventions to simplify the communication to our clients. Splitting out material and product value retention processes also contributes to ease of internalisation for those unfamiliar with the topic. We have also coined the term ‘Advanced Retention Technologies’ (ART) to differentiate between the technologies that result in high value retention and the rest. However, we do acknowledge that the principle behind this is not new.
Looking back on progressive work carried out in the area, what immediately comes to mind is the work of British Glass who commissioned an LCA study (undertaken by Enviros) to determine the carbon benefits of the various recycling technologies for container glass back in 2003. This piece clearly showed the benefits, from a carbon perspective, of retaining glass in the closed loop (bottle to bottle) recycling process and the negative impacts of using glass as an aggregate (even when compared to landfill!).
A study we produced in 2006 reviewed the various scenarios for the UK in meeting its 60% glass recycling obligations under the packaging and packaging waste directive. This highlighted the lost opportunity, in terms of carbon, of sending glass to aggregate. Disappointingly, latest statistics shows that the UK still sends one-third of all the glass it collects to low value recycling and is the number one country in Europe for the sending of waste glass to landfill.
How have you, and Oakdene Hollins, used ‘Value Retention’ framework to support clients?
I recently led a project on the topic of waste shipment policy, with the objective to showcase the merits (environmental, material risk, job creation) of circular economy (and value retention processes) at a European wide level. Controls on the transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, governed by the Basel Convention, were put in place to protect less developed countries from being exploited as simply a disposal route for hazardous wastes. Now however, some of the controls put in place by the convention are acting as barriers to a more circular economy in Europe. The project involved a review of existing literature and engagement with stakeholders involved in the Circular Economy in the target sectors (built environment, Electronics and Electrical Equipment (EEE), Municipal Solid Waste, Mobility and Industrial Equipment). This project gave us a deep understanding of the processes and issues associated with moving hazardous materials, and the impact value retention processes could have as part of a circular transition, if properly enabled by policy. The output of this project was a report that was presented to the European Commission as part of the review of waste shipment policy.
As can clearly be seen, this value driven approach to sustainability has been successfully implemented in business and is gaining traction at a policy-level. To learn how it could add value to your organisation contact peter.lee@oakdenehollins.com, or call 01296 423915 ext. 118.