Working Draft

Advancing
sustainability
through hyper
circularity
How new technologies can help
companies realize circular strategies to
avoid waste, benefiting both their
business and the planet.

1
Working draft
 Authors

ALPANA DUBEY ALEX KASS MEENA IYER

[Link]@[Link] [Link]@[Link] [Link]@[Link]
Research Lead Digital Experiences, Bangalore Fellow and Global Research Lead Digital Business and Technology Integration Executive
Experiences.
Technology researcher in the areas of Human Innovation specialist working at the intersection of Sustainability champion with practical experience in
Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, and technology, human learning, and human digital transformation and intelligent automation
Software Engineering performance.

2
Working draft
Contents
• How technology can help achieve hyper
circularity
• Why Hyper circularity matters
• Vision: Achieving hyper circularity by
inverting the end-of-life pyramid
• Enablers for pyramid inversion
• Realizing Hyper Circularity across new
business models
• Accenture offerings and example assets

3
Working draft
 HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP ACHIEVE HYPER
CIRCULARITY
Leveraging Technology across three key dimensions of hyper-
circularity:
Circular strategies are
already playing an 1. Moving further from disposal or recycling to a focus on ubiquitous re-use
important role in • Squeezing every ounce of useful life out of products and components requires carefully
organizations. However, disassembling the product and finding buyers for the specialized components
the highest-level of recovered, which is much more complex than simply breaking the product down.
circularity is yet to be Technologies for Resell marketplace and quality check to match components to
achieved. We still need to potential buyers and efficient disassembly process can help achieve this.
improve along at least 3 2. Creating efficient production processes to reduce waste of resources.
key dimensions. In this
POV, we show how the • Careful product design can reduce waste of resources during production process. Design
right approaches and for circularity can help designers to ensure that designers focus on waste in production
process during design process.
technologies can help
achieve this in multiple 3. Creating intelligent, efficient recycling.
business contexts.
• Recycling can be made more efficient if components and materials are properly
extracted and segregated as this will cause less material mixing and therefore efficient
processes. An efficient disassembly process can enable this.

4
Working draft
WHY HYPER CIRCULARITY MATTERS: THE
COST OF WASTE THAT CAN BE REDUCED
A conscious attempt to waste management can play an important role in circular economy. Circular economy handbook identifies four
kinds of waste that businesses should focus. The picture here shows those along with their market size and ways to address the waste
problem. Each of these play a major role towards narrowing, slowing, or closing the loop.
Key terms
WASTED RESOURCES WASTED
Material and energy that Narrowing the loop
cannot be continually
CAPACITY Efficient use of resources.
regenerated Underutilized or unused
products and assets For example, using less
Ways to address: Introduce renewable and bio- energy or material during
based materials, chemicals and energy Ways to address: Increase
production process
sharing,
Slowing the loop
Market size: $1.7trillion co-owning, co-using,
resource pooling, etc. Extending the use of
products. For example,
Market size: $0.6 trillion
using product for longer
WASTED EMBEDDED
time, repurposing the
VALUES
Components, material and
product for other use
WASTED LIFECYCLES
energy not recovered at
Closing the loop
disposal
Premature end
Recycling of material and
Ways to address: Increase of working life of products
reducing leakage. For
recycling, upcycling, component Ways to address: Lifecycle services for resell, example, taking back
harvesting and energy recovery maintain, repair, remanufacture, etc. most of the material so
that they can be recycled
Market size: $1.3 trillion Market size: $0.9 trillion or reused for better
purpose
Source: The Circular Economy Handbook: Realizing the Circular Advantage, 2020

Working draft
5
ACHIEVING HYPER CIRCULARITY BY
INVERTING THE END-OF-LIFE PYRAMID
With better use, reuse, and disassembly, we can make significant impact on circularity adoption

Product end of life where majority reach to landfills

End of life pyramid represents actions performed on
product / component / material at the disposal time.

Our vision is to invert the end-of-life pyramid by better

reuse, disassembly, and efficient use of products.

The basic concept is to drive up as much as possible the

extent to which we circulate products and materials at
their highest value, rather than disposing of them as is.
The top image depicts that only a small fraction of
Product end of life where majority is reused
products / material gets reused as of today when they
reach to end of life. With right technologies and
processes we can invert this by increasing reuse over
recycling and make recycling more efficient by
segregation of material.

6
Working draft
ENABLERS FOR PYRAMID INVERSION

Efficient Resell marketplace Quality checks Design for

disassembly A resell marketplace to Quality evaluation is very circularity
process connect consumers to buy crucial to assess fitness of Design for circularity makes
and sell used parts and products and its parts for sure that products are
An efficient disassembly products can help firms in reuse. Approaches for such
processes can help in realizing hyper circularity. evaluation will vary based designed keeping waste in
reusing the components. Firms need to establish a on type of products. For mind. That is, they are easy
Technologies such as financial incentives for its example, for a food to disassemble when they
robotics and AI can help in consumers to be part of products chemical analysis reach to end of their life,
creating a disassembly such market and provide will be more suitable they ensure less material
process where parts are logistics to ease the process whereas for an apparel waste, and use resource
extracted undamaged; of selling on such image processing will be efficiently
therefore reusable. marketplace. most suitable.

7
Working draft
THREE EXAMPLES: WAYS TO ADDRESS WASTE
PROBLEM WITH HYPER CIRCULAR MINDSET
Electronics Product
Electronics industries brings untapped opportunities to slow and close the loop by providing users DIY WASTED
repair and disposal support. For example, users of electronics products can be provided better support CAPACITY
to increase the life of product with self repair. An automated assistance for disassembly can enables all WASTED
the components to be reused in other products instead of being recycled or disposed of. LIFECYCLES

Food Product
An assistance to assess food condition through chemical sensors can help users decide if it can be
WASTED
consumed therefore avoiding fixed expiry labels. Assistant can also help them with recipes to reuse LIFECYCLES
food products. A proper supply chain can enable users to give away food before they get spoiled /
expired.

Apparels
WASTED
Apparel owners can use a resell marketplace to sell apparels standing in their closet without being CAPACITY
worn for years. A digital closet assistance can help user in styling and giving them new look with
WASTED
existing apparels, thus increasing reuse. Fashion firms can upcycle unsold apparels in this manner.
LIFECYCLES

8
Working draft
 Realizing Hyper
Circularity in Business
Models

9
Working draft
COMPANIES AT ALL LEVELS OF MATURITY ARE
REALIZING TANGIBLE VALUE FROM CIRCULARITY
Market Leaders Interesting Innovators Quantified Benefiters

Leadership Innovation Value Creation

• Fully circular CG&S business • Modular phone disrupting the market with • 154 million pounds of end of life material
• All materials used can be infinitely recycled fully sustainable offering taken back from customers for
• Over 75% of products are certified ‘Cradle – • Innovative design allows owners to open and remanufacture (2015)
to-Cradle’ gold level repair phones without any specific skills • Sustainable products, services and solutions
• Built the first LEED platinum certified • Product design and repair model extends accounted for 18% of company’s total sales
manufacturing facility: carbon neutral, water phone life to 5 years and revenues in 2015
neutral and landfill free

• Early pioneer of integrating circularity from • An innovative sportswear brand • $11 billion in recyclable materials are buried
product design, packaging and shipping • Revolutionised the material science behind in U.S. landfills annually
through recycling and reuse water-repellent treatments for functional • Unique app matches independent garbage
• Developed the first computer made using clothing haulers and recyclers with companies to
certified closed loop recycled plastics • Challenges the industry by making clothes as schedule on-demand waste pick-ups
• Using its global position to shift standards pure as possible - all clothing is 100% • Recent business valuation at $800 million by
and policies towards a circular economy biodegradable and could be used as fertiliser Forbes

• Source: The Circulars dataset Working draft

10
COMPANIES ARE ADOPTING NEW BUSINESS
MODELS
Agile : Personalized :
Real-time adaptation to customer Products and services
needs with a 'start-up' mentality tailored to meet existing
What does hyper and potential customer's
individual needs

circularity mean
for business
Circular
models? Subscription :
Costs of costly assets Value
shared across the users
Approaches to hyper Chain
circularity may be quite
different for different Pay-as-you go- Product as
business model as they offer a Service : Asset Sharing
varying opportunities to push Closed-Loop : Products are method - Enable increased
towards circularity recovered and recycled reducing utilization rate of
overall costs products by making possible
shared use /access /ownership

11
Working draft
BUSINESS MODELS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR
HYPER CIRCULARITY
While each business model brings several strengths and limitations, here we show the opportunities to
bring more circularity in each business model

Personalized Closed loop Asset sharing Pay as you go Agile

Strengths: Longer Strengths: Longer useful Strengths: product use is Strengths: product use is Strengths: Faster
product use as customers life and planned circular high high reaction to market
are more attached to strategy demand
Limitations: Possibility of Limitations: Possibility of
personalized products Limitations: Scope of Limitations: More
in-efficient use as product inefficient use
iterations over circular frequent / less effective
Limitations: Limited strategy is small therefore moves among users implementation due to
Opportunities: Nudge
reuse potential changes not noticeable agility and short cycles
Opportunities: educate service providers for
Opportunities: Introduce instantly users in efficient use of frequent assessment of Opportunities: Make
design for disassembly / Opportunities: bring agile product, Monitor products products for resource learning curve steeper for
reusability mindset and increase for efficiency efficiency long-term planning on
collaboration with partners right sized business
models
12
Working draft
ACCENTURE OFFERS A NUMBER OF TECHNOLOGY DRIVEN
CAPABALITIES THAT CAN HELP DRIVE HYPER CIRCULARITY
ACROSS A RANGE OF BUSINESS MODELS
BUSINESS MODELS TECHNOLOGY VALUE LEVERS

ACCENTURE OFFERINGS UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGIES

REDUCE WASTE APPAREL DESIGN TOOLKIT Internet • Sensors and
Helps fashion designers in designing apparels that produces less Actuators
Agile of
fabric waste. Things

RESELL WITH TRUST • CAD software

Intelligent
A resell market through with price prediction, condition
Closed-Loop assessment and product cataloguing services to make fashion
XR • 3D object
scanners
industry more sustainable

HUMAN-ROBOT TEAMING TOOLKITS FOR DISASSEMBLY • Robotics simulation

Subscription Suite of solutions to bring robots as a coworker in human based
Robotics • Pose and gesture
disassembly process for better reuse and efficient recycling estimation
• Path planning

INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SUPPORT ASSISTANT

Personalized Digital • Simulators
An Intelligent XR based assistant to help customers in efficiently
using, repairing, and disposing products Twins • Augmented
Reality

Asset Sharing SUSTAINABLE DESIGN ADVISOR

Artificial • Computer vision
(Product as a An AI based CAD analysis toolkit to help designer build more
circular products with several metrics Intelligence • Machine learning
Service)
13
Working draft
 Example Assets
The next few slides captures the assets that Accenture offers to its clients to push towards higher level
of circularity

14
Working draft
REDUCED WASTE APPAREL DESIGN TOOLKIT
Reduce waste apparel design toolkit narrows the loop by reducing fabrics wastage in apparel production
process.

Challenge
The textile industry is the world’s second largest polluting
industry both in terms of production and waste. Unsold
inventory, cutting left-overs, roll ends, used apparel are either
burned or dumped at landfills. Fashion and textile industries
need to find more circular solutions to reduce their
environmental impact. Designers need technological solutions
that can help in reducing waste and overall cost.
Original Apparel Pattern Optimized Apparel Pattern

Solution
Our solution guides designers in creating apparels that create
less waste and therefore reduces cost. Our solution uses
advanced AI algorithms to detect contours of apparel patterns
and optimally place them to reduce cutting leftovers. This
solution also predicts fabric waste and related cost as early as
the design stage, thus helping designers make more
sustainable design choices

Outcome
The Reduced Waste Apparel Design Assistants help designers in
generating apparel design with low waste therefore causing less
pollution and reducing cost.

15
Working draft
RESELL WITH TRUST
Resell with trust platform extends useful life of products by enabling users to resell unused apparels; thus
slows the loop.
Challenge
The fashion industry is challenged with the mounting problem of waste that
ends up in landfills each year. Consumers’ awareness of the ecological impact
of the apparel industry has increased, and they are demanding apparel
businesses to expand their commitment to sustainability. As a result, retailers
must now adopt a resale strategy that can maximize their profits and minimize
their climate impact. The resell market is expected to double in size to $77
billion over the next 5 years. However, issues like counterfeit products and non-
standardized resale price impact the resale industry adversely. Technological
solutions can help bridge this gap and build trust in this industry.

Solution
Our solution uses advanced AI analytics to match the resell apparels with their
original catalogue products. Deep Neural Network technologies are used to
perform reverse product cataloguing and extract detailed features of the
resell product. Such information helps in better inventory management and
product search in this market. Advanced Computer Vision can also help assess
the condition of the product and all these factors can help predict a fair and
explainable resale price for the product.

Outcome
This solution helps build trust in the resell market through AI based resell
price prediction, condition assessment and product cataloguing. It will help
retailers, resellers, buyers and recyclers and make the fashion industry
more sustainable.

16
Working draft
HUMAN-ROBOT TEAMING TOOLKIT
FOR DISASSEMBLY
Human-Robot teaming toolkit for disassembly helps in extracting components without any damage so that
it can be effectively reused or recycled. It helps in closing the loop and extending the loop with reuse.
leg Challenge
Disassembly of products are very crucial for an efficient recycling
pickup table process or reuse. Due to lack of tools for disassembly often products
are crushed which causes material mixing and makes recycling
Plan align Robot inefficient. Moreover, a manual disassembly bring huge health hazard
generator configuration
to people involved in disassembly process. For example,
table + leg disassembling a battery may cause huge health and life risks.

leg tighten
Solution
We have developed solution for human-robotics disassembly in
which human work alongside cobots in disassembly process. Our
pickup table + leg solution leverages techniques such as dynamic plan generation,task
distribution, automatic programming of cobots, and novel user
align interfaces to guide human-cobot interaction in following roles 1)
human as a co-worker and 2) human as an instructor.
table + leg + leg

Outcome
University Collaboration - IITM The human-robot teaming toolkit helps in looping back the product
We are working with IITM to develop a solution for parts in product life cycle at its highest value chain. A majority of
Human-robot disassembly process for Lithium-ion parts can be reused through this solution; thus, saving on resources
batteries (LiB). LiBs are going to be one of the top and reducing emission. Parts that cannot be reused can be recycled
pollutants in near future and a right strategy is needed to more efficiently as they can be separately treated / recycled with
handle the used batteries. We plan to develop a scalable similar material.
robotics solution for the same.
17
Working draft
INTELLIGENT PRODUCT SUPPORT ASSISTANT
Intelligent product support assistant helps in nudging consumers to use, repair, and dispose products
sustainably with end-to-end life support to consumers with unique AI and XR based application.

Challenge
Consumers have become more sustainable-aware these days.
However, there is a lack of solution to assist consumers using,
repairing, troubleshooting, and disposing product sustainably.

Solution
We developed Intelligent Product Support Assistant, i.e., a
coaching / assistance framework that leverages multi-modal inputs
captured by sensors and user actions, to coach consumers in
various tasks such as product installation, assembly, usage,
troubleshooting, repairing, dis-assembly, disposal etc.
This assistant is an AR application that helps users in visualization of
next steps in real-time. It uses AI techniques for Scene Analysis and
Next Step prediction.

Outcome
The Troubleshooting Assistant aids in a sustainable product journey.
We also envision resale and re-purchase of used parts. The Intelligent
Product Support Assistant can help both consumers and repair
personnel to sustainably use, troubleshoot and dispose off a product
or its parts.

18
Working draft
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN ADVISOR
Sustainable design advisor helps designers in making sustainable design decisions so that products are
modular and easy to disassemble. This reduces material mixing when products recycling is planned at end
of life. It also helps in effective reuse of product parts.

Solution
We developed a data-driven solution that leverages
information from 3D CAD models to generate a feasible
disassembly sequence. Graph Representation Learning has
been adopted to understand and process component relations
to generate the sequence and direction of disassembly of
individual components in the product.

Challenge Outcome
The Disassembly Assistant provides an AI driven, automated and
Every product that reaches its end of usable life needs to be discarded
streamlined approach which makes the disassembly process
sustainably. EOL products are often landfilled or incinerated, leading to the
more efficient and safer. Such a solution can see wide
loss of potentially valuable and recyclable materials, and leeching of toxic
applicability in Robotic Disassembly, Digital Disassembly, Product
substances into the air or soil.
Assembly Planning, Product Maintenance and Repair.
Effective disassembly of products is a key enabler of circular economy
strategies. Disassembly aids in product maintenance and repair, enables
reuse of parts and significantly increases the recycling yield and purity for
precious metals, critical metals and plastics from EOL products. Currently
disassembly is largely manual, unstructured, human centric, and carries a
range of health and environmental risks.
19
Working draft
 HOW DO WE ENGAGE?
First 6 months 6-12 months Beyond 12 months

Co-create Pilot Implementation Scale

Pilot: Scale up
• Pilot the identified solution in • Deploy solution at scale
limited scale
• Drive solution for clients with
• Implement Portfolio Governance &
Industry-X partners
Key Activities

Proof of Concept: Modernization Strategy

• Use case definition and Identify
Industry X partners
• Develop a POC to show our asset in
the business context
Key Outcomes

• Initial hypotheses • Pilot phase • Labs Offering Development

• Opportunity Discovery • Report on outcomes from • Work with Industry X partners and clients
• High Level Business cases pilot
• Proof-of-concept and user study

Working draft
 In conclusion

Business models bring unique strengths when it come to adopting individual circular strategy but pose challenges in
achieving a holistic approach towards circularity. There is still lot more to be done on choosing the right strategy for
the products when they reach end of life. Strategies such as resell marketplace, effective disassembly, design for
disassembly can pave a way to push towards Hyper circularity.

21
Working draft
Thank You