Consumption: Reducing, Reusing and Recycling Some Research Derived Insights ESRC Centre for Business

1
Consumption Reducing,Reusing and Recycling
Some Research Derived InsightsESRC Centre for
Business Relationships, Accountability,
Sustainability and Society

• Professor Ken Peattie, Director

2
BRASSWho we are and what we do

• ESRC funded Interdisciplinary Research Centre
• Other funding from Defra, DTI, EA, Landfill Tax,
  UNEP, EU, Local Government, WAG, business and
  others
• Began late 2001, now 35 full time and part time
  staff
• Research Areas include
• Automotive - CSR
• Electronics - Food
• Measuring Sustainability - Regulation and
  Governance
• Reporting Sustainability - Sustainable
  Communities
• Waste - Mining
• Social Enterprise
• Social Marketing
• Sustainable Consumption and Production
• Sustainability Education

3
Three projects

• Many BRASS projects link to material reduction in
  production and consumption. Three projects
  refered to today
• Reduce Social marketing for sustainable
  lifestyles
• Reuse The promotion of reverse manufacturing in
  response to ELV Directive
• Recyle The Cardiff Waste
  Trial Evaluation project

4
Social Marketing for Sustainable Lifestyles

• Attempts to promote green markets and consumer
  choices have done little to deliver more
  sustainable consumption
• A number of consumer behaviours need to change
  (ie reduce) re food, travel, energy use
  durables replacement.
• How can a consume less and/or more responsibly
  agenda compete with the Western industrialised
  vision of consumer heaven which is marketed to us
  ?
• How do we promote greener lifestyles ?

5
Social Marketing Defined
Kotler et al.
(2002)
6
Continuum of Interventions
Unaware/ Considering Change/ Maintaining
Behavior Education/ Communication
Aware/ Not Considering Change Markets
Marketing Social Marketing
Entrenched/ No Desire to Change Law

7
Social Marketing - Key Features

• Can involve demarketing of a behaviour or
  product, or the promotion of a behaviour or
  product (usually in health to date)
• Has its own marketing mix based on
• propositions not products
• accessibility (to information, solutions,
  alternatives) rather than place
• social communication rather than promotion (ie
  2-way, not 1-way interaction)
• cost of involvement rather than price, to
  understand total transaction costs

8
Why Does a Marketing Perspective Help ?

• Focus on segmenting different types of potential
  targets to receive a customised offering/message
• Focus on the perceived personal relevance of the
  issue
• Focus on communicating personal efficacy
• Focus on building a relationship with the target
• Focus on a broad integrated approach to
  stakeholders and communication
• Promotes ideas such as image, positioning,
  competition, market research,
• Marketers are the lifestyle experts, and many
  key issues depend on integrating with peoples
  lifestyles

9
Automotive Remanufacture

• EU End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive, made car
  producers responsible for ELV so that from 2006,
  85 of an average cars weight must be reused,
  recovered or recycled
• Requires a radical rethink of markets and the
  creation of non-linear supply loops or
  closed-loop networks where the post-use product
  flows back from the consumer to the manufacturer
• Major policy-driven challenge for car firms

10
The Project.

• 5 months embedding of a researcher within
  Mercedes-Benz operation in Germany
• Involved 3 supply chain levels
• Remanufacturing plant,
• Logistics distribution centre,
• Administrative centre (HQ)
• 64 interviews observation and business process
  mapping
• Aim to understand technical, logistical and
  management challenges of supply loops.

11
Closing the Automotive Supply Chain Loop through
Engine Remanufacture
12
Key Lessons

• Remanufacturing reverse logistics proved
  feasible and cost effective
• Product proliferation created problems
• Competition for skills, parts, investment and
  management time was fierce
• Customer relationship management dimensions
  underestimated
• Significant differences to conventional
  manufacturing
• Key loop that needed to be closed was actually in
  management thinking

13
Electronics BRASS WEEE Survey
UK Survey of Business 53 of over 200 businesses
feel that WEEE regulations are unlikely to result
in preventing household electronic waste
this just means that LAs will have to deal with
increasing amounts of these difficult to
segregate wastes
14
Cardiff Waste Trial Evaluation

• Cardiffs recycling rate Jan 2005 14.2
• Targets 25 by 2006/7 40 by 2009/10
• Questionnaire on all aspects of household waste
  management behaviour and attitudes sent to 5000
  households in 4 wards
• A - recycling for nearly 2 years
• B - recycling for 6 months
• C - recycling scheme is about to begin
• D - is a control area, no kerbside service

15
Key Aims

• Examine how waste is managed within households
• Identify the factors affecting purchasing
  behaviours and how waste is managed within
  households
• Understand purchasing behaviours within
  households and the relationship this has to waste
  creation
• Gain feedback from householders on the
  effectiveness of Cardiff County Councils
  recycling scheme in their area
• Determine the most effective ways to engage
  householders to both recycle and minimise their
  waste.

16
Swimming Against the Tide ? UK Trends in
Household Waste
17
Key Findings

• Kerbside recycling dramatically lifted rates
• Despite a high policy priority (in theory) waste
  minimisation paid less attention than recycling
  by public policy-makers
• Some active attempts at reduction (junk mail,
  plastic bags)
• Although limited, household waste minimisation
  activities were commonest amongst active
  recyclers
• Feelings of powerlessness were a barrier

18
Conclusions

• Amongst individuals and organisations success in
  implementing 3R strategies depends as much on
  behavioural factors/barriers as on
  cost/convenience/infrastructure factors
• Tendency to view 3R behaviour as a separate or
  add-on aspect, rather than as a facet of a
  holistic consumption and/or production system
• Future success will depend upon the effective
  marketing of concepts like SD, consumption
  reduction, and recycling/reuse.