Remanufacturing towards NetZero: helping manufacturers build back better

The remanufacturing market in Europe was valued at €11.5 billion in 2015*. This is expected  to grow, and indeed even more so in, and response to, these unprecedented times.

Remanufacturing offers the opportunity for manufacturers to increase the security of their supply chains, gain competitive advantage in the market, reduce their CO2 emissions and increase their corporate social responsibility and here’s why:

The UK is committed to becoming NetZero by 2050, traditional industries such as manufacturing will need to expand their activities to include NetZero initiatives to meet this target. Remanufacturing – defined as “Returning a product to at least its original performance with a warranty that is equivalent to or better than that of the newly manufactured product” – could be one method to help achieve this.

Furthermore, as virgin resources become more expensive and scarce remanufacturing becomes an attractive option for manufacturers to build resilience in their supply chains. This concept of taking a perceived “end of life” product and reintroducing it into the supply chain is known as the circular economy and represents a large opportunity to retain the value of a product beyond its original lifespan.

Brands such as Caterpillar have already successfully introduced remanufacturing into their business models allowing them to offer the same high-quality products to their customers at reduced costs and with a shorter downtime. Overall, including remanufacturing as part of daily business has the opportunity to yield both economic and environmental benefits, as costs associated with transporting and processing raw materials is avoided.  Rype Office are an excellent example of a circular economy business developing remanufactured furniture to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.

Remanufacturing is already an established practice in sectors such as automotive. More recently we have seen examples of its adoption in other industries such as furniture, medical, energy and more. There are many undiscovered sectors where remanufacturing could be applied to.

*Research & Markets

KTN in partnership with Innovate UK, University of Brighton and other key stakeholders ran two workshops exploring the opportunities in this area. These workshops also aimed to help influence audiences such as Innovate UK, BEIS, DEFRA and DIT to define how remanufacturing can play a part of the NetZero and “Build Back Better” agendas.

Monday 20th July – Remanufacturing towards NetZero; Growing your remanufacturing capabilities

This workshop is for organisations already involved in remanufacturing and are looking to grow their activities in this area.

View the recording here

Tuesday 28th July – Remanufacturing towards NetZero: An opportunity for manufacturers to “Build back better”

This workshop is aimed at businesses and research organisations that are not involved in remanufacturing and will focus on the huge opportunity this market offers them.  Speakers at this event include KTN alongside Oakdene Hollins, Construction Equipment Association, Renewable Parts, University of Brighton, Innovate UK and Clean Growth UK

View the recording here