Abstract
The increasing pressure on natural resources and the climate has been noted by businesses and governments worldwide, who now face the difficult task of integrating paths of environmental sustainability and economic growth. One promising approach to sustainable development, reducing the pressure on natural resources and solving waste problems is circular economy. From different ways of implementing circular economy, this study focuses on the productization of industrial side streams, which carry a great deal of underutilized potential. In this article, the productization of pulp and paper industry side stream, fiber sludge, for commercial use as a dust-binding agent is studied via a descriptive, in-depth case study. Apart from inconsistent quality, fluctuating supply, cost of storage and logistics, what makes industrial side stream utilization challenging is the lack of knowledge that stakeholders have about side streams and their utilization and the lack of new value chain development for their commercial use. Therefore, it is essential for all parties involved to have a clearer vision of what is being sold for what purposes, through productization. This study found that the productization of side streams follows the same steps as the productization of any other traditional product, and the productized side streams can be added to the company’s product portfolio as by-products.
Highlights
Today, climate change, scarcity of natural resources, the amount of plastic waste in the world’s seas and other issues related to the environment and sustainable development are constantly the focus of attention in different media
For Stora Enso Oulu, it is worth giving the fiber sludge away for free because they have a problem with storing all the fiber sludge produced, and the disposal of it results in costs for the company
Despite the additional challenges associated with the productization of industrial side streams, the productization of side streams as a process can be seen to follow the same steps as the productization of any other traditional product, and the productized side streams can be added to the company’s product portfolio as by-products along with their technical and commercial product structures, as demonstrated in this article
Summary
Climate change, scarcity of natural resources, the amount of plastic waste in the world’s seas and other issues related to the environment and sustainable development are constantly the focus of attention in different media. The increasing pressure on global resources and the climate due to human activity and population growth has been noted by businesses and governments worldwide [1], who face the difficult task of integrating paths of environmental sustainability and economic growth [2]. One promising approach to sustainable development, reducing pressure on natural resources and solving waste problems is circular economy, which has gained a great deal of popularity in recent years among scholars and practitioners (e.g., [1,3,4,5,6]). The current economy is still mainly based on linearity [3,4,6,7] and the availability of natural resources is taken for granted [2]. Circular economy aims to overcome this dominant linear economic model by increasing the lifecycle of products and materials, maintaining their utility within the economy
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