Okay. I’m Jos and I’m working on research in circular economy and 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 the transcription with the pseudonym, not your real name, in a repository of text documents that will be used for the research. If you 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 an information sheet with the contact information, so if you agree, please tell me your first name and that you agree.
My name is Nokyan. Nokyan and family name is Choi. And you agree? I agree.
Thank you. Nokyan. So the first question, can you define a circular economy in your own words?
Circular economy is a process where you see to it that the raw materials you use for fulfilling some use comes back and is employed to the best so it doesn’t get lost. At the end of life.
Do you participate in a circular economy yourself in any aspect of your life?
Yes. I’m in a team called Circularity Engineering Plastics, and we try to evaluate and develop recycling technologies for the materials we produce.
How did you become interested in circular economy ideas and practice?
Well, actually, I’m Korean, but I live in Germany and I think German people have quite a high awareness of environmental issues, which I think other countries should copy, should learn from. And as yeah, as a Korean chemist working in Germany, I thought I should also learn about that. It’s an important topic. I want to contribute to it. And not only producing plastics, but contributing to getting them back.
In your opinion, can a circular economy be implemented in individual sectors or individual industries?
That can be done, I think. But maybe it’s not the most efficient way or it’s not the only way. It’s a lot about partnerships. Circular economy if you want to make a circular. What was circle? What was not a circle before? You need to take hand in hands with other companies and maybe they are not in your industry. Yeah, it can be horizontal partnerships, vertical partnerships, so there shouldn’t be a constraint to that. Yes.
Do you think the circular economy already exists in the car industry?
It exists, of course it’s not fully exploited and there is still many things to improve. But the beginnings are there. I mean, the environmental issues are not since last year and we have them around. It’s quite some time. There have been pioneering concepts, but currently everything gets more urgent. We know it. Yeah, from climate change and we know we don’t have much time. So yeah, we should speed up. Speed up. So what has done already can be taken as basis, but we are far from the real solutions.
Do you currently own a car?
Yes, I do own a car.
Which kind of car?
It’s a Diesel.
It’s a regular car.
It’s diesel, correct
Yeah. What is the one the adjective that comes to mind when you think about car electronics? Electronics in the car. What is the first thought?
The first thought is that if you are a person living in a city, which I am, it is in general environmentally friendly, more environmentally friendly than a combustion engine, provided that the energy the car uses is really coming from renewable sources. Yeah, these are the aspects.