Erwin de Voys: Circular (re)thinking requires urgency

Right at the beginning of this piece of text, let me thank the final editors of Profile for giving me space on this page. After all, I want to talk to you briefly about the challenges we have in the field of ‘Circular (re)thinking.

We are in a zeitgeist where we are being bombarded from all sides with new laws and regulations to make us in the industry - but it applies to society as a whole, of course - more sustainable. This compelling motivation from the government is not so strange, by the way: after all, we must all achieve all kinds of environmental objectives by the year 2030 and then also by the year 2050. We also see that many clients in our field are already making much greater demands themselves in terms of recycled PVC and recycling.

Well, laws and regulations don't really escape us.

But we are not yet picking up the space we have ourselves to get things done well enough. The pursuit of sustainability still happens too little in practice, I see. Can I say with that that there is too little sense of responsibility? Yes ... I can say that somewhere. And, if it is done, there is often too much internal reasoning in terms of euros. Because if it costs too much, then suddenly it is no longer necessary. Then sustainability ambitions become a lower priority again.

Yes of course there are companies that do believe in it but then at the same time run into bizarre and sometimes contradictory regulations. For example, we all have to deal with requirements for LCAs (Life Cycle Analyses). However, national criteria often differ from European criteria. With some we measure it in emissions data, with others we measure it in euros.

Confusing all that. And it doesn't seem all that complicated to get it right now. It can't be that difficult?

Therefore a call to the government, to the politicians, to The Hague and Brussels ... make haste. Come up with clearer guidelines. Don't let the market hover or guess. Let companies know what they should or should not do. Because, most companies really want to from the heart, but they don't feel like complicated or contradictory criteria, rules or laws. 

Let's not risk too much of our future. So get to work. Circular (re)thinking requires urgency.