In your opinion, are cars that include electronic components easier or harder to adapt to circular economy principles than regular cars?
We have to rethink the more components we use, the more risk we do encounter if one component is end of life. So we have and this is also one of our research fields, we try to design circular economy in this integrate circular economy in the design process to make it also, if you have a you have to exchange parts. It’s easy to exchange parts without exchange. Total component systems. Yeah. Yeah.
What can the automotive industry do to promote circular economy?
Well, I think it starts in the production process within the circular economy. I think there are good examples and I think also consumers should know about good models, innovative models in the automotive industries of circular economy. And I think this could be a selling advantage in future. I think nowadays the on the user side, you can’t really differentiate between different automotive productions on how they really are, what stages of a circular economy they have.
Do you have concerns about privacy and personal data stored by car electronics, for example, GPS when thinking about reuse of car electronics?
Yes, there are concerns. Also things we have to be very much aware about. We are using much data and we have to to provide data security and not and make it transparent if we reuse data. So if data is is saved in the system, the consumer has to master the decision. If the data can be reused or not. This is an issue which is not very much debated in in the public awareness. Yeah.
What about electronics in general?
It’s the same here. It’s it’s our usage of data, of our personal data. And I mean, the data is the, the asset of the future. And, and many companies build their business models on data. But we have on the on the consumer side, private sector side, we don’t really have a high awareness of data security and data risks.
Are the general concerns about private data in thinking about circular economy practices.
Depending on which data there could be. Yes, I think we also will we will save consumption data and there could be a concern that we divide into the good consumers and the bad consumers, those consumers consuming things which are probably upcycled or recycled and those consumers and these will be the bad consumers in future who take the right to not to use circular economy products. This is a this is a societal challenge to to in a discussion to if you want to have that distinction, maybe we need that distinction to change something in the mindset. But it should not. On the other hand, it should not avoid freedom, personal freedom on on what to buy and what not to buy.
Does recycling and reusing mean different things to you?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Please explain.
The reason reuse is is a prolongation of the usage duration of a product and it can be also by repurposing something. So maybe a product is in its original purpose, end of its life cycle, but it can be used in a different purpose. And I think there’s a big potential in that. Recycle is the ultima ratio. It’s that really at the very, very end to to bring materials back in the in the circle, in the in the material circle. But it’s it’s. Way after re-usage and repurposing something.
On a scale of 1 to 5, one means not at all concerned and five very concerned. How concerned are you about issues of environmental waste and pollution?
I’m very much concerned, yeah. I’m very much concerned. Five five. Yeah. I think it is something that many people talk about, but we there has not we cannot really see a cultural shift in avoiding waste. It’s something like we call it the Florian’s principle. You know, it’s a principle saying that I try to change the attitudes or the, the the the way of life of others before changing my way of life. And this is something we need to have a cultural shift. We need to change our lives, our personal lives, and not just wait until the others do it. Yeah.
What, if any, actions do you take in your life to promote sustainability?
Well, as a president of a university, we really emphasize circular economy as one of the strategic issues of our university. We also as a university, we not only do research and lecture on on sustainable and circular economy, but we also change our way in our buildings in how we define mobility. We reduce also mobility. This is a very, very tough balance to be taken between international contexts and international networks that we still want to sustain on the one hand and on the other hand, avoiding travels by plane if ever possible.
And in your private life.
Same. Same. I avoid. I think I’m more aware of during the last years, more aware about my personal individual footprint, ecological footprint. And I try to avoid everything that can be avoided, for example, at any travels without any any defined purpose. I try to avoid that. So it’s also a refuse and not only reduce.