Okay, so my name is Joss. I’m working in research in Circular Economy and the automotive sector, and I would like to know your point of view. If you accept, I’m going to record our conversation, transcribe it, and put it to the transcription in the repository of text documents, but not with your real name. Yeah. If we do this and you change your mind later and no longer want to participate, get in touch with us and we will immediately remove your interview from the repository. I’m leaving you on the information sheet with contact information. So are you agree? And your name, please?
I do agree. My name is Sebastian Roebuck. I just have one question. You’re saying you come from a research group? From which university? From which? It’s a.
Okay. Edgeryders okay. Yes. Yeah.
So the first question, can you define a circular economy in your own words?
Okay. Circular economy is a form of sustainable economy using and reusing material streams in in multiple ways, avoiding waste, reusing and prolonging usage of material and products for the sake of saving, um, saving material losses in the, in the in the work stream.
Thank you. How did you become interested in the circular economy, ideas and practices?
I think circular economy is a very old idea. It comes to our mind now because we see that we are losing our resource, our natural resources. We are wasting our natural resources. We are living way above what the planet in future can provide. And there’s an urgent need to change the mindset and change methods of how we interpret economy, how we produce materials, how we produce things and how we consume them. So it’s on the production side as well as on the consumer side.
In your opinion, can a circular economy be implemented in individual sectors and industries?
Yes, I think it’s it’s a twofold system. You have to change consumption and an awareness on the consumption side. And I think all we as consumers of of goods and products every day can change the way we consume. I think we have to think more of a sufficient way of consuming. Consuming less. Yeah. And on the other side, we have to build on new systems on how we produce services and products in a more sustainable way. So both comes together and it’s in all sectors, it’s from automotive to to the construction sector. So we can take the same mindset in all sectors of production and consumption.
Let us talk about the automotive sector. Do you think the circular economy already exists in the car industry?
Yes, we have. We have in our studies and evaluation on the status of the circular economy in Switzerland. We have seen that the automotive sector is one of the innovative sectors concerning the circular economy. Yes, I do think that there’s awareness and there are also methods and and models in transformation, the automotive sector into circular economy.
How do you think is it possible to extend it?
Um, I think there’s one big issue in the automotive sector is the way for sure. It’s the way of, of the energy of mobility as such, how we produce energy, use energy in the automotive sector. We see or we are seeing big shifts into e-mobility. But not only that, but also the usage of material and reusage of the upcycling processes of old cars, for example, can be a big potential for future. We are nowadays we are still thinking of designing and consuming new cars, but I think the upcycling process is still a big potential.
Do you currently own a car?
I have a car, but I don’t use it very much. I’m a I’m a 90%. I go by train. Yeah.
What kind of car do you have?
It’s an Audi. It’s a hybrid. Yeah.
It’s a hybrid. When is the one adjective that comes to mind when you think about car electronics?
There’s too much car electronics. It’s. And but it’s, I think, more of a smart car electronics. So if the car electronics helps to reduce energy or reduce um um um toxic emissions. I think this is a smart electronics, but we do have lots of electronics and very complex system. Yeah.