David Fitzsimons (right) with Oakdene Hollins employee Edward Sims (left) and Aylesbury MP David Lidington (centre). Credit: The Bucks Herald
UK firm awarded grant to develop remanufacturing industry in Europe discusses importance of EU.
In an article on The Bucks Herald, David Fitzsimons, whose Aylesbury-based environmental consultancy firm Oakdene Hollins was recently awarded a €1.5 million ($1.9 million) grant from the EU to lead a project aiming to develop Europe’s remanufacturing industry, discussed why remanufacturing is important and how the EU helps in implementing the project.
Fitzsimons, who set up the consultancy 20 years ago with business partner Nick Morley, noted that while remanufacturing has “great potential”, Europe may be “in danger of falling behind its rivals”, although he added that “it’s not perfect, but without the EU it would be so much more difficult to co-ordinate things against the Chinese and Americans and you would see at every opportunity the French, German and British differences being exposed. It forces people to work together and that can be very helpful indeed. Nobody hears about this – when was the last time The Daily Mail wrote about that?”
The project Oakdene Hollins is to lead will identify potential markets for the remanufacturing industry as well as “encourage best practice and develop a European Council for Remanufacturers”, with the company’s 25 staff members – mainly made up of statisticians, economists and scientist – already advising organisations about “a whole range of sustainability issues” to enable them to “become more efficient and cut costs”.
On remanufacturing, Fitzsimons noted that there is not currently a great deal of public awareness: “Often consumers don’t know things have been remanufactured […] If you’re flying in an aeroplane, the pilot does not come on the speaker and say ‘you’ll be pleased to know 30 percent of the components have been remanufactured’.”
The project will be launched early next year.