Tarkett’s Roxane Spears shares parallel industry success stories and guiding principles.
Changes and Research
2020 has witnessed significant changes in the workplace. Some have been the result of physical workplace evolution, and others have been due to families adjusting to the current pandemic. While these changes range from subtle to dramatic, their collective impact has been sweeping. To understand how these adaptations and behavioral trends might impact office design, Tarkett has been conducting an ongoing research project — “Rethinking Workplace” — since 2018.
To date, we have surveyed 11,700 people working in commercial offices across 14 countries worldwide. The research has been carried out in collaboration with three research partners: CoreNet Global, OnePoll, and WKSpace.
The CoreNet Global research, which took place before the pandemic hit, focused on the circular economy and to what extent U.S. organizations were changing their behavior to operate under more stringent environmental standards. It suggested that a heightened awareness around sustainability was the primary factor in driving workplace change.
Our more recent surveys — carried out during the Covid-19 outbreak — suggest that the health crisis could be a beneficial catalyst for change. As the pandemic continues to unfold, our research reveals that employees have a renewed sense of purpose: environmental policy is emerging as a key issue for them. The Rethinking Workplace study highlights that office workers in the US and Europe are becoming more concerned about their employers’ commitment to environmental initiatives. Notably, in September of this year, US office workers highlighted workplace environmental issues as their greatest concern. By contrast, in the pre-COVID CoreNet study, not a single US survey participant identified the need to address their company’s environmental stance.
Position Shift
This significant shift is mirrored across Europe. The pandemic has illuminated environmental concerns for many across the planet. Workplace environments are a topic close to our heart at Tarkett. We are focused on becoming a circular economy business through several key initiatives anchored around Cradle-to-Cradle principles, collaboration, and closing the loop. We don’t seek to be merely a company that recycles or decreases our greenhouse gas emissions; we want to be one that makes a meaningful impact on what is important to our customers and our employees. We believe organizations that focus on a circular economy business model are also setting up decision-making standards which can be used to measure decisions against a single clear objective: does it move our business to a circular economy? If not, we should explore other options until we find a path that will redirect our business back to a circular economy.
These guiding ideas force us to look beyond the current “take-make-waste” extractive industrial model. Instead, a circular economy aims to redefine growth, while focusing on positive, society-wide benefits. A circular economy, flowing through a variety of industry types, generates economic growth, reduces damage to the planet, and improves health.
To implement the three principles of a circular economy, every product must start with healthy materials. As an example, Tarkett follows the Cradle to Cradle design philosophy outlined by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. This framework offers organizations five guidelines to analyze products such as clothing, furniture, curtains, carpet, or even a building.
The five points are:
- material health: is it free from negative effects to its users and the environment?
- material reutilization: at the end of its life can it be made into something useful?
- renewable energy: does it come from a renewable source?
- water stewardship: does it make prudent use of scarce water resources?
- social fairness: is it just and equitable?
These five points direct us by setting the proper path for decision making. They require us to ask: Do we as an organization want to change our processes to meet the needs of a healthy planet and healthy spaces for people?
Roadblocks and Parallel Examples
What obstacles stand in the way of widespread adoption of such a path? For one, many industry players are wrestling with self-induced inertia. They see the built environment industry as being too complex and fragmented to move to a circular economy business model. But is it? Design and construction do involve myriad organizations making decisions at many levels, but many other industries are similarly complex. The fashion industry, for example, has relied on toxic chemicals for dying fabrics and experienced waste at both production and end of use stages.
Historically, it has grown on the principle ‘more is better’. Yet, the fashion industry has made amazing strides in the last few years to shift focus to a circular economic model. Many organizations are reevaluating fabrics and dyeing processes. Others have options to return used items for new. Eileen Fisher has created a program called Circular by Design. They are taking their clothes back at a rate of 1.4 million units annually since 2010. These items are either resold or remade into new designs. Another trend in the fashion world is called ReWork. The name tells us: reject newness in favor of repair, reuse, and resale. This campaign is about embracing imperfection and irregularity and repairing existing things to give old products new life.
The built environment industry can embrace some of these same principles to induce action. We can put value on remodeling buildings versus tearing them down. Before we remodel, we can evaluate what can be removed to repair, reuse, or recycle, rather than send it all to a landfill. Decision makers can and should change the evaluation process from lowest initial cost to life cycle cost including impact.
Business leaders looking at costs to build or lease should evaluate based on their biggest assets — their employees. Many companies spend as much as 90 percent of their budgets on human resources. The 3-30-300 rule of real estate was created and popularized by the global facilities management company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). The rule says that for every $3 a company spends on utilities, it spends $30 on rent and $300 on payroll. Following a circular economy business model not only means selecting materials with longer life cycles and finding ways to reuse materials, it also means making healthy product choices for your spaces. Taking care of your biggest cost and investment means selecting products that are healthy for people in their workplaces.
The appliance industry is another area that could move to a circular economy business model. What if its manufactures had to provide reparability features, options, or increased product longevity? Some of you may remember the ads for Maytag appliances. Their marketing campaign promoted a memorable, human idea: since their products are built to last, their repairman is the loneliest guy in town. Maybe we move to renting appliances? Manufacturers would then take back products, refurbish them, and send them back to the market.
Benefits and Other Exemplars
While many organizations look at the circular economy as reductive and possibly offering fewer opportunities for growth, Tarkett considers reduction and reuse as sound business principles and embraces them as part of a circular economy. In fact, a circular economy can generate new businesses. A great example is an organization called Rheaply. Their business model is connecting people with things. They realized many organizations have warehouses and storage rooms full of unused equipment and goods that other organizations could use. Their solution was to create an asset exchange platform that drives the visibility of these items, connecting organizations to resources. The benefits of this approach include reducing new item purchasing and lowering storage needs. Rheaply has now engaged many large organizations in using their platform.
Circular economies can also reinvigorate your organizational culture. Examples abound. Companies like Patagonia and REI Coop have made these ideas and practices fundamental to their business models and cultures. REI Coop, a retailer for outdoor equipment and clothing, now repairs most of the items they sell. To stop the promotion of over-consumerism, they are no longer open on Black Friday. Instead, the company engages employees in community service events.
Patagonia has created a culture deeply rooted in environmental caring and activism. Their marketing messages tell us: “Quality is an environmental issue.” And, “we’re in business to save our home planet.” One of their primary tools is a product scorecard used to look at the health of the materials used, their impact on the environment, ease of maintenance, reparability, and longevity.
Manufacturers and practitioners in the built environment industry need to look at new processes. What new businesses can be created to recycle materials? Can reverse logistics processes be shaped to retrace returning material for repair, reuse, or recycling? Designers, builders, and owners must relearn how to evaluate buildings to get the largest return in reusing the current structure.
Action
How do we translate these challenges into action in the built environment industry? Simple: by requiring the principles of circular economy for our decision making. If we set up our business models to address these three principles:
- Design out waste and pollution.
- Keep products and materials in use.
- Regenerate natural systems.
…we can successfully move the built environment to a circular economy business model.
Who’s in?
As Vice President of Sustainability for Tarkett North America, Roxane Spears leads the organization’s sustainability initiatives across research and development, material optimization, and corporate communications. In 2004, the company’s strong commitment to sustainability drew Roxane to join the organization. In that time, she has served in multiple sales and management roles, focusing on educating her peers and customers on the importance of circular design. She is passionate in her belief that we all must work together toward a common goal of healthier building materials and radical transparency. An advocate for the climate, circular economy, built environments, and Tarkett’s continuous innovation, Roxane leads the company with vision, which she shares at conferences and speaking engagements throughout the year.
Tarkett sets bold objectives to become a circular economy business. Using circular economy as our overall mission statement has been our guide for decision making and the path for constant improvement for products, facilities, and impact on the planet.