By José Ángel de la Paz
A sustainable plastics industry can be achieved through disruptive, systemic and circular innovation, claimed industry experts and EGADE Business School faculty at the INCmty entrepreneurship festival.
In the panel “Can plastics be transformed to become sustainable? A circular economy proposal”, Ruy Pérez, Jaime Cámara, Eduardo Aguiñaga and Carlos Scheel discussed the circular economy, an eco-friendly system that aims to capitalize on resources to reduce, recycle and reuse all types of waste, give them a second life and putting them back on the market in a new form.
The examples they gave were PetStar and its shareholder Arca Continental, companies that form part of the Mexican Coca-Cola Industry (IMCC) and signatories of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment formulated by the Ellen McArthur Foundation, which champions a significant increase in the quantities of plastics that are reused and converted into new packaging or goods.
PetStar recycles 3.1 billion PET bottles per year and converts them into recycled food grade resin, which is reused by Arca Continental and IMCC bottlers who have joined Coca-Cola's global commitment to recover 100% of its packaging and use at least 50% recycled material in its bottles by 2030.
“The opportunity for entrepreneurial undertakings based on waste is as huge as the generation of the same,” assured Ruy Pérez, Corporate Sustainability Manager at Arca Continental.
“Endeavor to forge multidisciplinary alliances; this is an excellent time to present proposals for new circular business models. The main challenge is to create solutions without generating bigger issues for the planet,” he told the audience of entrepreneurs.
Jaime Cámara, founder and CEO of PetStar, believes that recycling and reusing plastics serves as an example to inspire other industries to move towards a circular economy, since there are many other materials that can be recovered.
“The proposal to ban plastics does not count unexpected costs. The problem should be analyzed holistically. The challenge of waste management is everyone’s responsibility - the private sector, consumers and governments. Global businesses have already committed to incorporating recycled materials in their production,” said Jaime Cámara, who is also the director of Avangard Mexico.
Eduardo Aguiñaga, national director of the Master in Business Management program at EGADE Business School, pointed out that for a company to become sustainable, it not only needs to redefine its business model, but also completely transform its culture and bring each and every employee into line with that vision.
“The problem can’t be solved in landfills. Waste needs to be recovered; there are so many valuable products that nobody is exploiting. The circular economy takes this waste and returns it to the value chain,” added the Circular Economy leader at Heineken México.
Panel moderator, Carlos Scheel, EGADE Business School professor emeritus, defined the circular economy as an individual who identifies connections that are not visible at first sight and has the capacity to analyze the business model holistically to reassess and convert waste into a new product.
“A circular economy implies breaking several paradigms in order to move away from the linear economic model of ‘take, make, dispose’, creating new, profitable business models that will have a positive impact on society and nature. We need to think about systems rather than products,” Scheel concluded.