THE BIOSPHERE RULES

PRESENTED BY:-
AKANKSHA CHAUDHARY U113067
ALISHA MISHRA U113068
AMIT SHUKLA U113069
ANANDVASWANI U113070
GEETHA GOWTHAMI U113071
ANSHUK PRADHAN U113072
Use a
Parsimonious
Palette
6 Natural Elements account for 99% weight of living things. More perfect nature is fewer means it
requires to operate.
Different materials add different performance charactertics - Potato chip Bag
A simple palette makes recycling easy where as all the products cannot be recycled back. Less Is More
Cycle Up -
Virtuously
Nature: Repeated use of the same materials allowing biosphere towards more integrated and sustainable
community.
Up cycling maintains the quality of products through generations
Virtuous Recycling relies on planned obsolescence.
Exploit the
Power of
Platforms
General purpose platform leveraged over and again to create biodiversity.
Platforms are widely used in the industry to optimize. From material level platforms of interchangeable
components
Materials are more fundamental platform on which components and final products are built.
SHAW INDUSTRIES
Produces Carpet tiles used as industrial flooring
95% of old carpet is ripped up and dumped in landfills
Carpet tiles were made of potentially toxic and difficult to recycle PVC
Shaw recognised the need for a simple palette of nontoxic materials
Made the switch from PVC to Nylon 6
Developed and integrated production system capable of using old carpet tiles as raw materials and turning them
into new carpet tiles
Shaw made huge savings when the cost of oil increased
Senior executives made a $2 million bet on unproven technologies.
Simplifying the number & types of material makes recycling cost effective
Aeron desk chair 800 chemical compounds 96% recyclable.
Material choice- Screening of non toxic materials. Ciba Chemical Dyes. 16/1600
Materials must be physically capable of being up-cycled. Nylon 6, Nylon 66
Cost Effective: 75% of steel and 50% of Al is recycled.
Think Fewer
Material
What designs will meet out product specifications using our existing material.
Planning for the end at the beginning.
Polyamid 2000 highly effective recycling facility. 20mn/ 200mn pound of waste.
American 45% Nylon vs European 25%.
Rethink
Design
Leveraging standard materials and cyclic production systems.
Profitability depends on efficiency of execution
Patagonia performance innerwear recycled by Teijin. The platform extends to other
products.
Recycling requires lesser energy 76% for Patagonia and 20 % for Shaw.
Extension of Product Line.
Think Scale
Economies
Finding ways to profitably recover products installed at customers location.
The buyers will also become the suppliers. Manage product life cycle & input from vendors.
The complex issue of reverse logistics will also need to be handled
Rethink the
Buyer-
Supplier
Relationship
THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
The article does not suggest any definitive ways of handling the counter-intuitive
issue of planned obsolescence.
The suggested method of providing incentives to customers to prematurely upgrade
might be misused by the companies.
The article only discusses certain examples and does not attempt to suggest
solutions that might be applicable across the board.
As the article suggests, there is no way of knowing if a strategy will prove to be cost
effective. Doubts remain over the financial aspects of The Biosphere Rules.