Exploring circularity: The only straight way forward

In the quest for a sustainable and environmentally conscious future, the distinction between the Circular Economy and the Linear Economy has become a central focus.

Circularity prioritises maximising the reusability and lifespan of materials and resources, striving to reduce resource consumption and minimise waste generation.

At Fagerhult, we believe circularity is the only way forward, and are committed to the development and design of products that both last over time and can be reused or recycled. In this four-part series, we spoke to brands within the Fagerhult Group to find out more about their targets, solutions, and approaches to circularity.

First up, we caught up with Niclas Thulin, Sustainability Manager at Fagerhult.

What approach do you take to circularity at Fagerhult?

We are working to meet Science Based Targets in line with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 °C target, which is ambitious. To achieve these science-based targets, we have four focus areas: circular solutions, energy efficiency, pure materials and conscious production. ‘Circular solutions’ focuses on how we will make the transition from a linear to circular economy.

In terms of targets, our initial focus was to implement circular business models, and the second is to enable products to be repaired, refurbished, reused or recycled. Having these targets in place creates a direction for us when it comes to new product development.

Do you design your products with disassembly and end-of-life recycling in mind? How easy is it to disassemble your products for recycling or refurbishment?

We’ve learned a lot about refurbish and reuse, and we want to design for circularity. For example, we don’t use glue within our products, we try to think modular wherever possible, and we now not only test how to assemble our products, but also to disassemble, making adjustments where necessary to make them even easier to disassemble.

Do you offer remanufacturing or refurbishment services for your lighting products?

Our Re:Furbish concept is about giving old luminaires new life. A customer might have an existing solution they want to reuse or decrease their environmental impact from, so they may ask us to upgrade.

We use as much from the existing light fitting as possible, whilst at the same time upgrading it so that it’s equally energy efficient and has the same function as a new luminaire.

Our designers will put together a prototype based on reusing as much of the materials as possible – for example the body, the glare protector, the reflector – the good thing about using the body is that it is one of the components with the most embodied carbon.

A lot of our products were initially designed over 20 years ago, and we have been good at using screws instead of glue, so most of the lights can be recycled or reused. The light fitting can be easily opened up and the electronics replaced with something we called a ‘Re:Furbish kit’ – it’s easy to install and doesn’t take much time.

We send it to the customer so they can see the solution, having evaluated and tested it from an energy perspective, producing a climate calculation which the customer can compare to the old solution. What we are trying to do is find a way of minimising impact from the materials but ensure the products are equally or more efficient as a new alternative, whilst maintaining the light quality so that it is still beneficial for the end user, too.

How do you ensure circularity throughout your supply chain, from sourcing raw materials to manufacturing and distribution?

We take a holistic approach right from the beginning – reducing materials in new product development, making materials thinner, making luminaires smaller, and not over specifying products, so having less luminaries in the same space.

Another example of our circular solutions concept is our product Kvisten, launched last year and built from both renewable material and reused plastic. The reflector is made from old TV screens, removed from the TVs at the end of life, then cut to size for their new function by our supplier. Through innovations like this we are trying to implement reused materials in our new product development, and our target is that by 2030 our products will be made of 80% renewable, recycled or reused content.

In terms of minimising the impact of transportation, we do the installation on-site, which is a benefit because we don’t need to freight the product to site and back, so we are minimising the impact of transportation. This is only one piece of the lifecycle of course – our goal is for all of Fagerhult’s newly developed luminaries to have an environmental product declaration – providing transparent information about the environmental impact of a product during its life cycle.