Develop your roadmap to profitable sustainability
Sustainability requires a zero carbon emissions circular economy.
The need for a circular economy is all too evident.
Materials, including plastics, must never reach end of life, they have to be the start of a new life.
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The need for a step change in carbon emissions is also very clear.
The planet’s atmosphere contains unprecedented levels of CO2 putting humanity in jeopardy.
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Over the last 60 years the situation has got rapidly worse.
Efforts to put this into reverse have so far had no impact at all, so we have to start thinking differently, radically and quickly.
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Over the last 60 years the situation has got rapidly worse.
Efforts to put this into reverse have so far had no impact at all, so we have to start thinking differently, radically and quickly.
Find out more
The design of products, their manufacture, use and re-use must become sustainable if humanity is to continue to call earth home.
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Mission
Our mission is to help companies to develop specific, tailored roadmaps to sustainability.
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“The circular economy is a positive start but it is not enough to make any material sustainable.”
“The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at an accelerating pace. This increase has been caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal.”
Circular
Economy
Zero Carbon
Emissions
Sustainable
Business
Services
AEG Consulting helps companies in developing a road map to profitable sustainability, advising on recycling technologies and ways of reducing all three scopes of GHG emissions.
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The Circular Economy has the power to shrink global GHG emissions by 39% and cut virgin resource use by 28%.
“...we still have time to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, but only if we take urgent and ambitious action now. To do this, we must rapidly transition away from fossil fuels and build a zero-carbon economy.”
About
Adrian Griffiths has spent over a decade developing a circular economy recycling process for mixed plastics and the processing plant for achieving this, the RT7000. He sits on the management board of the British Plastic’s Federation (BPF) Recycling Group and Chairs the Innovation Campus for the Circular Economy (ICCE).
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“The time for delay is over. The time to let industry off the hook is past. It’s time for government to lead.”
Mission
Our mission is to help companies to develop specific, tailored roadmaps towards sustainability, focusing on the circular economy and carbon.
“The design of products, their manufacture, use and re-use must become sustainable if humanity is to continue to call earth home.”
The circular economy is essential for sustainability, it also presents companies that embrace it the opportunity to improve their profit as well as their impact on people and the planet, the triple bottom line.
In 2010 I saw this photo, which I believe is of the Citarum river in Indonesia. It had a profound impact on me, making me realise how little I knew or cared about what happens to materials I used after they had served their purpose.
Today we all appreciate that discarding material after use is not only catastrophic for our environment, but a huge economic loss. It is clearly unsustainable and in many cases unnecessary, viable solutions exist to ensure the waste of today is the feedstock of tomorrow. This is the basic principle that has been enshrined in the circular economy. The circular economy is essential for sustainability, it also presents companies that embrace it the opportunity to improve their profit as well as their impact on people and the planet, the triple bottom line. Our aim is to help companies develop a plan, a road map that enables their triple bottom line to benefit from the circular economy.
Source: Global Monitoring Laboratory https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/history.html
Whilst the circular economy is essential to sustainability, it is not the only consideration. Products may become circular, but they may well be unsustainable through the lens of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Green House Gas (GHG) emissions are an important aspect of an LCA, and CO2 is an important component of GHGs.
I have in the past asked myself the question, is the impact of humanity on the planet overstated? The ability of the planet to absorb carbon and to emit carbon, via volcanos for example, is enormous. So could the current high levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere be the consequence of a natural cycle? Any doubts I had in this regard were categorically answered by the graph above. The long natural cycles are evident over the last 800,000 years, typically averaging 225ppm. Then comes the industrial revolution, now levels are nearly double this and rising very quickly. I sat with my daughter a few years ago and watched this short “pump handle” animation, it was moving, revealing and shocking. For me it is clear, we have to find a way to not only slow down the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, but to put it into reverse.
The long natural cycles are evident over the last 800,000 years, typically averaging 225ppm. Then comes the industrial revolution, now levels are nearly double this and rising very quickly.
Source: Global Monitoring Laboratory https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/history.html
It does not matter if the carbon in oil was a plant a year ago or a million years ago, burning it when there are other options is an act of insanity.
Sadly, the efforts to reduce CO2 emissions have so far had no impact. In fact, zooming in on the last 60 years of the previous graph this image shows that every year the situation has become worse.
We have to become much more radical in our thinking and approach. Burning anything with carbon in it has to stop. It does not matter if the carbon in oil was a plant a year ago or a million years ago, burning it when there are other options is an act of insanity. When we need carbon in products, it should come from the atmosphere not the ground. Of course this will not all happen tomorrow, but companies will only be sustainable if they have plotted a route through the transition to net zero carbon emissions.
“A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. It replaces the end-of-life ‘take, make, dispose’ extractive industrial model...”
“The circular economy is an important tool to achieve our sustainability objectives ... it can help us move towards a more inclusive, green and climate-resilient future.”
“Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.”
Services
AEG Consulting’s aim is to help companies that understand sustainability to develop a road map to achieve it.
AEG Consulting helps companies in developing a road map to profitable sustainability, advising on recycling technologies and ways of reducing of all three scopes of GHG emissions. We do this by focusing on four key business areas - Business Strategy, General Operations, Product Design and Fulfilment.
Scope 1, 2 & 3
GHG emissions
Scope 1 emissions
Emissions from sources that an organisation owns or controls directly.
Scope 2 emissions
Emissions that a company causes indirectly when the energy it purchases and uses is produced.
Scope 3 emissions
Encompasses emissions that are not produced by the company itself, and not the result of activities from assets owned or controlled by them, but by those that it’s indirectly responsible for.
Scope
1
2
3
Business Strategy
Product Design
Fulfilment
General Operations
Business Strategy
AEG Consulting helps senior teams to develop their thinking around what products and services can and should the organisation seek to provide to be sustainable. This consideration has to take into account the ability to make products that already are, or can be with development, fully circular and emit zero carbon in their manufacture, use and rebirth.
Product design
Setting KPIs around ‘designed in’ carbon encourages product designers to use sustainable materials, to design products and services that inherently reduce the embedded carbon. Design has also to consider the emissions that a customer of the product will emit in its use (Scope 3) and then how it will be recycled into products of equal value, its rebirth.
Fulfilment
— Supply Chain: the focus on cost quality and delivery has to be augmented with carbon. Encouraging suppliers to use lower carbon production methods, selecting suppliers using renewables, local sourcing, electric only vehicles etc. are all aspects of challenging the embedded carbon in any product.
— Manufacturing and Distribution: depending on the product final assembly can add significantly to scope 1 emissions. Understanding the impact of current fulfilment methods and charting a course to being able to achieve this with zero carbon emissions is vital.
— Collection and rebirth: Knowing that it can be recycled is not the same as ensuring, so far as is possible, that it is. Today, no product should be distributed without practical and achievable systems to ensure that its value will not be lost after its current purpose.
General operations
Carbon emissions from commuting, business travel, office heating and lighting etc. can all add up, but this aspect often yields the quickest wins in an organisations carbon footprint.
![Figure [1.1] Overview of GHG Protocol scopes and emissions across the value chain, including upstream activities, reporting company, and downstream activities - AEG Consulting](https://aegconsulting.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/AEG-Consulting-Services-Figure-1.1-Overview-of-GHG-Protocol-scopes-and-emissions-across-the-value-chain@2x.png)
About
Adrian Griffiths is the founder of Recycling Technologies and enthusiastic advocate for profitable sustainability.
He has spent over a decade developing a circular economy recycling process for mixed plastics and the processing plant for achieving this, the RT7000. He sits on the management board of the British Plastic’s Federation (BPF) Recycling Group and Chairs the Innovation Campus for the Circular Economy (ICCE).
Previously Adrian co-founded Vendigital in 2000, now a top-20 Management Consultancy, and the highest rated specialist as listed in the FT’s Leading UK Management Consultancies special report and OEE Consulting in 1997, an operations consultancy which has now merged with gobeyond partners. He is a chartered engineer an experienced manufacturing expert and holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College.
The circular economy is a positive start, but it is not enough to make any material use sustainable. This requires the materials manufacture, use and re-use to be low or zero carbon. Developing such low carbon solutions that enable the circular economy is Adrian’s passion.
“The circular economy is a positive start, but it is not enough to make any material use sustainable. This requires the materials manufacture, use and re-use to be low or zero carbon.”
The Circular Economy has the power to shrink global GHG emissions by
0%
...and cut virgin resource use by
0%
Adrian Griffiths with Claire Perry, Former Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth of the United Kingdom.
“Achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is essential to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C and avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.”
“The time for delay is over. The time to let industry off the hook is past. It’s time for government to lead.”
Adrian Griffiths on the set of the One Show for an interview live on BBC.
Adrian has a leading role in a number of major, innovative organisations
Ready to start your journey towards a zero carbon circular economy?
“A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. It replaces the end-of-life ‘take, make, dispose’ extractive industrial model with one that runs on renewable energy, minimizes waste, and keeps products and materials at their highest utility and value at all times.”
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The pledge is made jointly by TCCC’s bottlers Coca-Cola EU Partners & Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company for an average 45% rPET by 2025, equating to more than 160000mt.
Neste has pledged to work towards chemical recycling of more than one million tons of plastic waste annually from 2030 onwards. We aim to use liquefied waste plastic as raw material to produce high-quality plastics, chemicals and fuels. Regulatory recognition of chemical recycling is needed to speed up development.
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CO2 ppm 2020
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