Reorient Make in India to build sustainable markets for future

Recently when the chief sustainability officer of IKEA, Steve Howard remarked at the Guardian Sustainability Conference that, "If we look on a global basis, in the West we have probably hit peak stuff. We talk about peak oil. I'd say we've hit peak red meat, peak sugar, peak stuff … peak home furnishings," it created quite a flutter across industry circles.

In an economic system where development and prosperity is synonymous with growth, these kinds of pronouncements don't make sense, but it should.

IKEA is not eschewing growth at all but just looking at it in a radically different manner. It is trying to rewire its systems and processes to make repair and recycling central to its business strategy. This is in line with its goal towards becoming a more circular company by designing waste out of its entire value chain and this includes the period after it has sold its products to its customers.

One would wonder if this would work in a market like India where a disproportionate number of people are poor and haven't reached basic sufficiency levels in consumption. Yes, it does, just that we need to do it differently.

The take-make-waste design on which we have modeled our economic systems is not working any more and we have the opportunity to revive our markets by redesigning this linear model and make it circular.

In fact, adopting circular models would deepen markets, create jobs by boosting local economies and enable equitable growth and it would even help us manage our enormous problem of waste by turning this waste into inputs for our production systems. How can this be put in practice?

One way is by simply creating an efficient second-hand market. The ones that we currently have are quite basic and offer a short-term remedy to the issue of waste. We urgently need businesses to get smarter about designing products that can be brought back into the production system at the end of the products' lifecycles and look at using materials that are already in circulation for new product development.

This could create millions of formal jobs and business opportunities in collection, remanufacturing, designing, research and development and services.

Businesses could also experiment with models where long-term leasing instead of outright sale of products becomes a core strategy. This model, popularly known as a Product Service System (PSS) would ensure rapid product market growth, in addition to enabling a number of business ecosystems that would help support the PSS infrastructure.

People who are unable to buy could pay to use products, thus creating access and simplifying lives for millions.

We have to accept the reality that unlimited growth in the form we are most familiar and comfortable with is no longer an option. The most visible signs are the serious pollution levels, the growing mounds of trash, inequality and lack of access to basic lifestyles.

We have to design into reality and practicality a system that does not require the relentless extraction of resources, creates jobs, boosts local economies and gives everyone the opportunity to access basic goods and services.

Kabadiwalla Connect is an excellent example of how waste can be diverted from landfills and upcyled. It is a social business that connects local waste collectors and aggregators, promotes encouraging stories about local recycling through a campaign #EverydayRecyclers and has a design studio that is dedicated to transforming everyday waste into premium products.

Gubbi Labs, a private research collective is focused on a host of areas ranging from sustainable ecosystems to livable settlements. Organisations such as these need to be encouraged and businesses could work closely with them to understand and learn about future market trends and opportunities.

Understanding and subsequently collaborating with such organisations will be tricky initially, as they have a philosophical ideal that is antithetical to traditional business systems - that of transparent open systems of innovation and a highly collaborative approach towards research and development.

That is what makes it all the more important for conventional businesses to try and work with such organisations so that they can learn the basics of building organisations of the future that can remain relevant to the markets of the future.

In developed markets such collaborations are already underway. Take the example of The Relooping Fashion Initiative that is reproducing old cotton clothing into new material.

The initiative is being led by various organisations and research groups that include a clothing brand, a technical research institute, a textile recycling company, an environment services company, a sustainable packaging company, among others.

If we could reorient the Make In India campaign to focus on initiatives such as these, we could continue to pursue growth and prosperity that is fair to the planet and to the people and profitable for business.