{"id":68950,"date":"2021-05-18T10:18:09","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T08:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/?p=68950"},"modified":"2021-10-27T13:05:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T11:05:00","slug":"creating-an-efficient-ecosystem-for-a-sustainable-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/creating-an-efficient-ecosystem-for-a-sustainable-transition\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating an efficient ecosystem for a sustainable transition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eleonora Foschi is an environmental engineer with expertise in the field of circular and bio-economy. She received a PhD from the University of Bologna with a dissertation on System Innovation and Life Cycle Thinking in the Plastics Value Chain. During the post-doc at the Department of Management, she advanced the research on business models for the circular economy. She is involved in many EU projects and collaborates with a multitude of national and international public and private institutions.<\/span><\/i><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The addition of <\/span><b>BBS Centre for Sustainability and Climate Change<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to the Bologna Business School represents a clear message of what should be, in the near future, the way of doing business, which can no longer ignore <\/span><b>creating social and environmental value<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to mitigate the already visible effects of climate change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To meet these needs, it is necessary <\/span><b>to approach the complexity of natural <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and anthropic <\/span><b>systems<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in a systemic way, analysing their relationships and understanding their cause-effect processes. The <\/span><b>multidisciplinary approach<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which I believe is the added value of the Centre, is therefore fundamental, in addition to the special characteristic of BBS, which is to have a <\/span><b>strong collaborative and inclusive approach to the corporate world<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For years, research has been, and still is, hinged on single-sector knowledge structures, which today, as never before, highlight their severe limitations, preventing the creation of <\/span><b>socio-technical innovation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that completely revolves around <\/span><b>social, environmental, and industrial ecosystems.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Whilst studying for my PhD, I have had the opportunity to gain experience in several research groups and projects, studying <\/span><b>innovative products, machines, and technologies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which, in the context of the laboratory, seemed to perform very well but, when put into the real world, lost their relevance because they clashed with incompatible organisational infrastructures. Therefore, being in continuous <\/span><b>contact with public-private organisations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and thus having a <\/span><b>clear understanding of production and consumption patterns<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and working in a team of researchers with different backgrounds, open to the exchange of knowledge, analysis techniques and measurement methods, I believe are the <\/span><b>necessary tools<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to cope with the complexity to which I was referring earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If we think that <\/span><b>animal husbandry generates 7.1 GtCO2 per year, equivalent to 14.5% of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Gerber et al., 2013) and that one of the main impediments to the implementation of the circular economy is the lack of comprehensive legislation, it is unthinkable that such expertise should not be part of a team working on climate change mitigation and compensation measures. This is demonstrated by the <\/span><b>2030 Agenda<\/b> <b>that, through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the 169 targets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, reviews all aspects that revolve around the three dimensions of environment, society, economy to create a path of resilience that puts first climate and social justice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If I contextualise the topic in <\/span><b>my research path<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which focuses on <\/span><b>circular economy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as a means of supporting companies in the <\/span><b>transition<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to sustainable business models, it emerges that there is a need for a <\/span><b>continuous and structured dialogue<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with <\/span><b>legal experts<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with whom I can discuss end-of-waste legislation, with <\/span><b>material chemists<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with whom I can understand the implications of new polymers on value chains, and also with <\/span><b>sociologists<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with whom I can test consumer behaviour, etc. This path has led me to look at <\/span><b>economic and business sciences<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to combine economic and environmental aspects. It will be even more stimulating to broaden the scope and combine other experiences and skills.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indeed, as an environmental engineer, my research has always been based on <\/span><b>sustainability as a goal and on circular economy as a means <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to achieve it. During the years of my PhD and post-doc studies, I understood how <\/span><b>corporate choices <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">can have a huge impact on the life cycle of products\/services. If we look at the <\/span><b>plastics<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> sector, which is currently in a state of turmoil due to growing public awareness of marine littering, the benefit is obvious.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The choice that the <\/span><b>packaging<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> producer and user makes at the design stage can have repercussions not only within the organisation but also, and above all, in the subsequent stages, from marketing, to use, to disposal of what will become waste. This is to say that orienting a business model towards sustainability is not limited to a marketing operation or to creating a mere competitive advantage. Adopting a <\/span><b>sustainable business model<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is not just about producing a sustainable material or providing a sustainable service, but it means a <\/span><b>radical transformation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the supply, production, marketing systems etc. So, going back to the previous example, if a brand owner decides to use more sustainable packaging, they will have to think about which material among plastic, bioplastic, paper, Tetrapak etc. can create more value along its life cycle, <\/span><b>train employees<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, create <\/span><b>consumer<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> awareness, ensure effective <\/span><b>recycling<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>recovery<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as a secondary raw material and consequently, create supporting partnerships etc. And, in making these changes, they must ensure that citizens&#8217; needs are met, resources are rationalised, and long-term profit is created.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By Eleonora Foschi, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Assistant Professor of Circular Economy and Sustainable Business Model<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eleonora Foschi is an environmental engineer with expertise in the field of circular and bio-economy. She received a PhD from the University of Bologna with a dissertation on System Innovation and Life Cycle Thinking in the Plastics Value Chain. During the post-doc at the Department of Management, she advanced the research on business models for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[207,92],"tags":[],"rubrica":[],"class_list":["post-68950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-en-2","category-news-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Creating an efficient ecosystem for a sustainable transition | BBS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbs.unibo.it\/en\/creating-an-efficient-ecosystem-for-a-sustainable-transition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Creating an efficient ecosystem for a sustainable transition | BBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eleonora Foschi is an environmental engineer with expertise in the field of circular and bio-economy. 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