From Spiral to Circular Innovation

The Spiral of Innovation has been a “buzz phrase” in the business world. Idea of “New Product Development” was described according to the pace of bringing in the NEW – Continuous New Product Development, Dynamically Continuous New Product Development and Innovation (now also described as Disruptive).  

The process centred around the concept of improvements; incremental or radical; over the previously developed products and thus there was a screw-pitched, spiral like developmental graph in three-dimensional modelling which would show up as a linear growth model in two-dimensional graphics. This worked well, so much so that businesses could lead the market through planned obsolescence.

The iPhone 6s is the perfect example: In spite of the revolutionary design that introduced us to the 12-megapixel camera and 3D Touch technology, its disappearance from the Apple store is enough to render it obsolete in the minds of consumers. Apple, the world’s second-largest Smartphone producer, signed the death warrant of the wildly popular iPhone 6s with the launch of new models iPhone XR, XS, XS Max, X, 8, 8 Plus, 7 and 7 Plus last quarter. This is planned obsolescence.

Very little has changed in the twelve months since the launch of the iPhone X.  The release of a new iPhone model marks the disappearance of the iPhone 6s from Apple’s catalogue — a mere three years after a release with so much of noise and fanfare. This well-oiled mechanism has been in place since the very first iPhone and Apple has conditioned its consumers to happily accept this pace of obsolescence.

In spite of Apple’s “psychological warfare against their common sense,” the iPhone 6s still retains the qualities that have made it one of the most popular smart phones ever, with over 80 million sold worldwide. These 80 million phones still have good years ahead of them. In its three years in the market, the iPhone 6s has taken the lead in the marketplace.

A linear “take-make-dispose” economy, which has been the most popular economic models around the world, since the industrial revolution, is largely wasteful because up to 90% of the raw materials used in the manufacturing process end up as waste even before leaving the production line. In addition, 80% of goods manufactured are eventually thrown away within the first six months, which translates to an unsustainable rate of wasting fast-diminishing natural resources.

Produce, use and dispose-off? No, reduce, reuse and recycle. The current paradigm of lineal economic model could be coming to an end and its place will be taken by the circular economy. Fortunately, a circular economy that is based on regeneration and restoration can help solve almost all the problems associated with a linear economy. More specifically, a circular economy aims to keep raw materials, goods, and product parts at their highest value and utility levels all the time. This is in addition to differentiating between biological and technical cycles.

As more ideas come about, more principles for circular innovation will emerge; but there are at least ten principles that define, as of now, how circular economy should work:

1. Waste as a resource: is the main feature; all the biodegradable material returns to the nature and the non biodegradable is reused.
2. Use: reintroducing those products that no longer correspond to the initial consumers needs back and once again in the economic circuit.
3. Reuse: put to reuse certain products or parts of those products that still work to elaborate new artefacts.
4. Reparation: give damaged products a second life.
5. Recycle: make use of materials discarded as waste.
6. Valorisation: harness energy from waste which can no longer be recycled.
7. Sell functionality not ownership: eliminate sale of products and transfer of ownership. User rents the product and returns it to the company after using it, where it is put through use/reuse/reparation principles as may be possible.
8. Switch to renewable Energy: eliminate use of fossil fuels to produce, reuse and recycle the product.
9. Eco-design: considers and integrate the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of a product.
10. Ecological Management: establish optimized management of stocks and flows of materials, energy and services by industry and by geography.

The world is changing and there are campaigns to convince consumers to stop systematically turning to new models. This fight against a fetish, where new models are gobbled up and then soon enough purged, is an effective way to combat the overproduction of electronics, the over-exploitation of natural resources, and the explosion of e-waste.

Certified refurbishing is one proven and reliable way to extend the life of electronics, keeping them out of the landfills. Fearing a social and market backlash, Apple has taken recent steps to improve the sustainability of its devices. It has committed to develop a closed-loop model for its supply chain by focusing on using only renewable resources and recycled materials and eliminating conflict materials from its value chain. The tech giant has already incorporated artificial intelligence, a robot called “Liam” to aid in the disassembling of products and recovery of components that can be recycled; and hopes to encourage more consumers to return products to be recycled and made into new equipment through its Apple Renew recycling program. 

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