A number of individuals involved in the government inquiry discussed what steps to take to improve it, including “cross-industry collaboration” over sharing solutions.
The Guardian reported on the UK remanufacturing industry’s potential to reach a high valuation in the next few years “if [the] business model can be cracked”, stating that it “represents a huge financial opportunity […] and could give British manufacturers a competitive edge”, though “cross-industry collaboration is probably easier to foster than getting direct competitors to share solutions to industry puzzles”.
The All-Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group (APSRG)’s report, launched in March, stated that the industry could be worth £5.6 billion ($9.2 billion/€6.7 billion), and saw the government start an inquiry into the industry’s potential in August, which UKCRA submitted to in September to get across the cartridge remanufacturing industry’s perspectives.
The ASPRG noted that there was “huge potential” for remanufacturing in the UK, but that the government will “need to address barriers”, and the ASPRG’s Manager Laura Owen told The Guardian that “remanufacturing presents a huge financial opportunity for the UK”, but acknowledged that OEMs and third-parties need to work together, which is “something is that is not always done.
“OEMs need to work to ensure the design stage of the manufacturing process is transparent to enable any third party remanufacturer to be able to disassemble and then remanufacture the product. The return of parts and products from consumers back to an OEM or third party remanufacturer at the end of its first life is a barrier identified by almost all of the remanufacturers we spoke to during our latest inquiry, irrelevant of sector. If industr[ies] worked collaboratively in this area and set up incentive schemes in conjunction with each other, this practice would become consumer habit rather than consumer exception”.
Susanne Baker, Senior Climate and Environment Policy Adviser at manufacturing organisation EEF, questioned in turn the ASPRG’s idea of a network for sharing ideas, asking “why would a successful remanufacturer share their competitive business model with potential competitors? I think it would be naïve to think that they would. Remanufacturers would, I suspect, be more willing to collaborate to identify common barriers and issues which are preventing their business from growing”.
Orangebox’s Design Manager Gareth Banks meanwhile added that “business is still business, so cross-industry collaboration is probably a little easier to foster than getting direct competitors pulling together”, with The Guardian noting that OEMs and third-party remanufacturers “of the same product category” would be “unlikely to want to gel […] printer cartridges being a case in point”.
The Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (CRR), run by Oakdene Hollins, which has been tasked by the EU to lead its own remanufacturing project, saw Manager Ben Walsh state that “there is no body at a national or European level that represents the views of remanufacturers in the policy sphere. We see it as a need […] remanufacturing can be seen as second best [but] that is largely a perception issue rather than a reality”.