Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2020 - 4

reflection
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f there's one thing the coronavirus crisis has taught, it's the essential role
that digitalisation plays in maintaining business continuity and productivity,
especially in a lockdown situation.
And while digitalisation and Industry 4.0 have been buzzwords for quite
a while now, with companies across the board tentatively dipping their toes into
the pool of opportunity offered by these newly available technologies, COVID-19
has changed all that.
Companies have had to adopt new solutions at breakneck speed to keep their
businesses running, from allowing people to work from home to finding creative virtual alternatives to physical products and services. Cloud computing services have
seen massive growth. In short, business are going digital at an unprecedented pace.
The long-term impact of these changes is difficult to predict, but it is probably fair to assume that one change will be in the way digitalisation is perceived.
Whereas it used to be that 'doing it the way we always did it is good enough' - with
digitalisation even viewed by some more as a threat rather than, say, an opportunity - that mindset is now evolving, as the realisation that the way things used to
be has gone and may even never come back, has increasingly been borne home.
Experts agree that, in the long run, only those businesses, in the plastics industry and elsewhere that are agile enough to learn and adapt will likely be able to
remain competitive and resilient in the post-coronavirus 'new normal'.
This higher degree of acceptance for digital solutions in the plastics industry
might also serve to hasten the transition towards a more sustainable and circular industry. As DSM's Marcus Remmers notes in an interview in this issue, 'digitalisation
and sustainability are intimately linked'. And while in this instance, he was specifically referring to the development of new, sustainable material solutions, it applies
equally well to the development of the circular economy for plastics as a whole.
Blockchain is the main technology driving that development. Blockchain provides the transparency and traceability needed for closing the circular economy
loops and makes it possible to authenticate any sustainability claims being made,
as Mesbah Sabur of Circularise explains in this issue's Q&A. Circularise is working
to make its protocol the European standard within the next 5 years.
Yet with the accelerated pace of digitalisation seen during the pandemic,
who knows: that might well be sooner. And with more and more voices calling
for a 'green recovery', an opportunity much too good to be missed seems to be
presenting itself.
What if the circular economy could be integrated with the response to the present crisis?
Digitalisation - in the broadest sense - can help to deliver on both economic
and sustainability goals. Going forward, why not take advantage of that?

Karen Laird

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Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2020

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