Wood chain project in the final for the Circular Award!

We are proud that the ‘wood chains’ project, for which we developed the programme on behalf of the Province of North Holland, has been nominated for the Circular Award Public, which will be presented at the National Circular Economy Conference on 3 February 2020. For us, this project is a crowning achievement of work in which we asked ourselves what our role as a consultancy should be. Partly through Iris Grobben’s master’s thesis on this subject (link to this blog, in Dutch), we set out to find ways to develop programmes in which policy and business come together and strengthen each other. The programme we developed for the wood chain project reflects a number of principles that are central to our work.

Publicly funded research is public data: concrete CO₂ reduction made visible
In the MRA study (read more about the MRA study and click here for the public database) that we carried out together with Metabolic, the data showed that not reusing wood from construction and demolition has an enormous environmental impact. After validating this with the market, it turned out that most respondents indeed believe that burning wood is not the solution for this stream. High-grade reuse of wood, on the other hand, offers many benefits, such as CO₂ reduction (read here Pepijn Duijvestein’s blog on the opportunities of timber construction, in Dutch). By making the data from our exploration publicly available as a database and a calculation model, the market can put it to use. Companies can quickly analyse whether high-grade reuse of a particular stream is profitable in their region.

Focus on implementation
Within the Icon Chains of the Province of North Holland, New Economy was asked to develop a programme to unlock the potential of wood in the market. We continuously monitor developments in the market and in society, which enables us to link the market to opportunities in policy and the economy. We took a practical approach. Our aim is to translate theoretical opportunities into the implementation of a circular chain, with the ultimate goal of reusing wood at a high grade and so eliminating value loss in the wood chain.

A scalable programme 
To achieve that implementation, it is important to develop a programme that is scalable and to build a chain that can continue to grow independently after an exploratory pilot phase. New Economy therefore started by mapping the companies that wanted to take part. Through interviews, the interested chain partners supplied data on their current activities and the opportunities for reusing wood. The next step was to translate the opportunities of local wood into four concrete chains, for each of which we developed a public calculation model covering the whole chain (see the database and calculation model for circular business here).
This made clear to all participating chain partners that by working together on a circular chain, every link can generate value and earn money. Two pilot chains were then started: a first chain of local wood from Amsterdam that becomes available through felling in the region, and a second chain for used building materials.

Opportunities for new business models and value creation
As a consultancy, we do not take the entrepreneur’s seat; instead, our programme connects entrepreneurs so they can think about new business models and partnerships together. In this way they get to know the principles of the circular economy, which they can apply to their own chain, and theoretical opportunities become opportunities for their own business. This does not happen automatically and requires adjustments from all parties involved. But once it works, examples of the new economy emerge!

Because yes, demolition has to be selective, which takes the demolition contractor more time. The material has to be processed to meet requirements again and then transported to a new (storage) location. It then has to be made available so that it can be used as a secondary raw material in a new design and construction process. Connecting all of this locally and getting the chain partners to work together is a challenge. This is where the Province of North Holland saw the opportunity to stimulate a new way of collaboration between companies in the chain, with New Economy acting as a catalyst.

Innovative public-private partnerships
We are proud that it has succeeded in North Holland and that the companies are seizing the opportunities. It is great to see the companies respond positively and be willing to invest themselves to realise these chains in the region. To us, programmes like this show the strength of public-private partnership: scientific data and innovation are tested against reality and made publicly available to the market, and businesses then translate them into their own product, service or operations.

Making an impact together
This is how we create impact together with our clients: not just by talking, but above all by making research publicly accessible and putting it into practice. Finding, selecting and sharing data in this field proves to be an effective way to encourage companies to adapt their value model. We are therefore extremely proud that the programme we developed has led to a nomination for the Circular Award Public, and we look back on a successful project in which the chain partners, the Province of North Holland and New Economy worked together in an innovative way to make an impact with the circular economy.

Want to read more about the wood chains project? Click here. Want to know what kind of programme New Economy can develop for your chain? Email or call Pepijn.