Recycling networks

This is a question of two months ago, so I realize I am rather late at writing this blog. But at the time I could not think of a proper example for the assignment. The assignment, or question, was to think of a regional network of production and analyze this network with at least two of the concepts discussed during the lecture. These concepts include ‘dependency’ and various types of networks. I recently thought of a great example to analyze for this assignment: a recycling roundabout in my municipality. 

Let me first draw the situation. In my municipality, various types of garbage are retrieved: plastic, garden waste, paper, and domestic waste. In addition to that, the municipality has a facility what I like to call a recycling roundabout. You can deliver all kinds of garbage that are too large for your average garbage bin, but also waste that should not be in the garbage bin. The roundabout is basically a raised platform with a large number of containers around it. You can throw waste in its proper container. The types of waste you can deliver there range from building debris, to electronics, to glass, but also branches and compost.

I have made a possible network linkage that makes this recycling roundabout possible. I have depicted the network as two cliques for which the municipality acts as a central actor, which bridges the structural hole. I think this is a rather realistic setup, because recycling companies do not usually work for small amounts produced by a single household. So citizens/households are not likely to have a connection with a recycling company. The same goes for small companies within the municipality. Had I included bigger companies, whose waste amount may have been big enough for recycling companies to handle on its own, this big company could likely have had a connection with a recycling company. But since this is not the case for households or small companies, the municipality acts as a central actor in the network to bridge the structural hole and allow for recycling companies to recycle domestic waste. 

The roundabout is not only about networks, I think it also shows a form of self-organization. Citizens are encouraged to recycle, because this platform is there, and it is a relatively easy way to get rid of all kinds of waste. And once they see the place for themselves, they can immediately see what other kinds of material can be recycled and what is collected at the roundabout. I believe that this encourages recycling even more. This was my own experience from when I visited the place for the first time. Moreover, it is an effective way of encouraging recycling from the municipality’s point of view. It requires a minimal amount of effort for the municipality and works through self-organization within households. The municipality only has to contact recycling companies when a container has filled up, for it to be collected. They do not have to collect the waste themselves, since citizens can manage that through own initiative. However this does mean the roundabout is somewhat dependent on citizen’s participation. In return citizens are dependent on the recycling roundabout to get rid of their large waste or used electronics. 

The final point that has to be discussed is about closing material loops. I do not think I need to make clear how the network constrains or enables actors to work towards closing material loops. You could say the essence of the recycling roundabout is to close material loops.

Pressure for LCA

This week’s question is: Through what boundary conditions or external control can the government increase the use of LCA? Let’s start with the external control. Although this is not the perfect way of handling thing, since rules have to be monitored and sanctioned, it is a very direct way of enforcing things. The government could set a rule like this: before a product enters the market, a full LCA needs to be executed on this product. This is not the rule that will be in the law books, a perfect, non bypassable rule will need to be made by the administration of the government. But this is not the only task the administration will be granted, the monitoring and sanctioning will also come under their care. It is difficult to imagine how such a monitoring system would work. Because of the sheer amount of products that exist, the workload will be enormous. There would need to be some trust relationship between a governing instance (maybe the Kamer van Koophandel), and the company producing products of which a LCA needs to be made. Producers would have to report their LCA findings to the governing instance themselves; otherwise I think this form of external control is not maintainable. 

By setting boundary conditions, the government reduces the workload because the amount of monitoring and sanctioning is in this case mostly not required. There are different types of boundaries the government can set. She can alter market conditions, through either taxes or subsidies. The government can also alter the available information, by for example advertisements or setting ‘best practices’ (commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective) but also by censoring/propaganda. A last option is alter physical conditions, e.g. roads, borders, etc., but this is less applicable in the case of increasing the use of LCAs. 

The first one I will analyse is altering market conditions. I think the best way to apply this here is through a tax on products that have not had a LCA. This way, products with a LCA get privileges over ones that have not had a LCA done, since they can be cheaper. Customers will be more likely to buy cheaper products, meaning companies that have not done a LCA on their products, will see their income decrease. This way you can also ‘force’ companies to prove the government an analysis has been done for their products; there is no need for a trust relationship, as was the case for the external control. Moreover, the system of taxing already exists in the form of VAT; hence the administration will likely not have to deal with more work. However, there is a chance that all companies will refuse to pay for a life-cycle analysis to be done for their products, which means the bill ends up with the customer. This outcome is not the intention of such a tax, but is a possible outcome, so perhaps not the best way to increase the use of LCA.

The next possible boundary condition I would like to analyse is altering the available information. In my opinion, this is a promising tool for this case. If the government were to set LCAs as ‘best practice’, and creates an instance that hands out labels, saying a LCA has been performed on certain articles. Customers would gain another measure to judge products, which can alter their buying behaviour. I think this could increase the use of LCA, but still gives a choice to companies and customers, and choice equals freedom. However, this will not maximize the use of LCA, since there are costs to LCA, and I think many companies will take their chances, and hope that the customer chooses for the cheapest product. After all, costs for LCA will eventually end up in the price of the product, but that is always the case, except if the government themselves finances LCAs for products, which is another option for setting boundary conditions. 

To conclude the post, I think depending on the desired amount of LCAs being used, one of the above examples could be chosen as policy.

Harvest game

Two weeks ago we played the game called harvest. This game was some sort of simulation of fishing boats, emptying the seas. As we soon discovered, the sea is very easily emptied, after only 4 rounds, there were no fish left. In this blog I will propose a few rules that should help the system to remain in balance. So the only real change is that fishing boats/teams, can now communicate with each other. This opens up the opportunity for committees, policing force and meeting places to be established. 

I propose to create a board of fishers, one member from each group, to sail along with another boat for one round. After this round, the board members come together, and report each group’s catch. These board members will not lie about the group’s catches, because it is not in their interest since it is not their group that they have to report on. The following round, board members swap boats, in order to prevent befriending of the board member. After five rounds, board members are re-elected, since they have been aboard all boats. 

But what happens if, a group decides to catch more than what was agreed on? Can we prevent them from leaving the harbor next year? No we cannot. Can we destroy their catch? Once again, we cannot. For all this, we need another group, one that punishes groups who catch too much fish. Like the board of fishers, this group must be formed by members of the fishing groups. As a punishment I propose destroying half of the catch for the first year the group catches too much fish. If they continue to catch too much in successive years, their entire catch must be destroyed. Otherwise, they can just keep fishing 10 fish each year, and still make more profit than other groups who abide the rules, and thereby empty the sea.

Nokia and their Chinese supplier: a world apart

The video we watched during class has shown us, both Nokia, and the supplier company strive for legitimacy. This leads to companies becoming more similar. The process of becoming more similar can be described by three kinds of transmission: coercive pressure, mimicry and normative pressure. Coercive pressure is the pressure from either the governing organization, most of the time this is the national government, or the consumer/supplier. The government pressures through laws and fines, whereas the supplier or consumer can threaten with the stop of supply or demand when the company does not live up to their standards. Mimicry as a transmission of characteristics is the copying of other firms’ actions. This happens mostly if the firm mimicking is uncertain about how to proceed or what to do in cases. After all, you could fall behind in terms of competition when not mimicking, because the competition is doing something more efficient. Normative pressure is transmission of characteristics by professionalization. Colleges and universities ‘supply’ new or young employees, who then work by what they’ve learned. Essentially every company in a field changes because every company hires new employees at some point.

	Nokia	Chinese supplier
Coercive pressure	Customers demand sustainable products. Fear for lack of customers if details of manufacture become public knowledge	Chinese governmental laws; pressure from Nokia and possibly other customers. Possibly demands from their HQ in Germany, since they are a German company
Mimicry	Mimicking Scandinavian and/or competing companies (Apple, Samsung)	Mimicking other Chinese companies in terms of payment, working overtime, and housing. Manager mentions that Nokia will not find a different situation if they would look at other companies/competitors
Normative pressure	‘Expert’ on sustainability and ethics, Scandinavian based company	European/American manager, they are a German company

The table shows how both Nokia and the supplier of Nokia strive for legitimacy. Nokia is trying to persuade their supplier by using coercive pressure. But also by sending consultants to inspect their company, which can be divided to normative pressure; Nokia is trying to persuade them of changing their norms to a more European model. The documentary shows that the supplier does not immediately change, this is of course a process that takes time, but eventually they make small concessions. The next paragraph will discuss if the approach of Nokia is an effective way of diffusing their sustainability criteria.

Is Nokia effective in their approach?

I would argue that Nokia’s approach is a safe but slow way, possibly the fastest, of diffusing their sustainability criteria. You can summarize Nokia’s approach with the concluding meeting between the staff of Nokia and the managers of the Chinese supplier. Before the start of the meeting, the faces of the managers of the supplier show anxiety. In the last weeks (?) they’ve noticed Nokia is not happy with many things in and around their factory. They fear that they could lose their main customer. But Nokia handles it well, they mention things that are going well, and things they would like to have fixed (working overtime, having a choice between living on the site or elsewhere). Nokia even elaborates more things that they think are going well, rather than all the problems. The manager’s reply is that he is happy that they have found some good things as well. As cooperating companies, you do not want to obstruct your relation with one-another. Pressuring too hard might cause too much friction, which could stall improvement or even worsen the situation. This is why Nokia plays it safe; they are happy with any improvement and know that the process of improving the situation at the supplier’s factory will take time. Nokia also knows that if their relation turns bad, they might lose their supplier. Searching for a different one will take time and money, and moreover, they would have to go through the same process of diffusing sustainability again, because other companies are likely to have a situation that is very alike to the initial situation of the supplier. Therefor I think Nokia’s approach is an effective way of diffusing their sustainability criteria. 

Other coordination

Governance

Convincing the Chinese government to sharpen their laws and monitoring of those laws is an option for Nokia. This will probably speed up the process of improving sustainability of many factories in China, but it is not likely the Chinese government will change the laws because of Nokia alone.

Self-organization

If the supplier has own incentives of improving their sustainability other than through governance, they could improve through self-organization. Examples for incentives are a lack of employees because they do not want to work for the supplier any longer because of the working situation. This is example is also not likely, since these employees would need an alternative place to work. If the situation is the same at other factories, they will not have this alternative.