Product Take-Back & WEEE: Choosing the Right R-Strategy

B2B Take-Back Which products are worth refurbishing, and how can manufacturers get them back in usable condition? Julie Fournier, responsible for circular economy at Legrand, and Kevin Chen, Director of Consulting at Circul'R, discuss how to select the right circular strategies for different products and organize take-back systems across a portfolio of more than 300,000 product references. What you'll hear in this episode: • How to identify products suitable for refurbishment, considering customer demand, product value and design for disassembly • How to balance collection volumes and product quality by combining EPR systems with direct take-back • How product mix, shared infrastructure and aligned incentives affect the economic viability of take-back systems at scale The conversation also covers product-as-a-service as a potential alternative for retaining access to products, and the challenge of sharing data across companies while protecting commercially sensitive information. This is the fourth episode of our B2B Take-Back series. People Julie Fournier, Responsable économie circulaire at Legrand Group https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-fournier-13329858/ Kevin Chen, Director Consulting at Circul’r https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinschen/ Patrick Hypscher, Circular Business Strategist, PaaS Expert https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypscher/ Chapters 00:00 Intro 04:34 Legrand's product range and how refurbishment began 09:33 Criteria for refurbishment: demand, residual value and eco-design 13:29 Product mix and choosing R strategies across a portfolio 21:03 EPR schemes and direct take-back from facility managers 28:41 How to align stakeholders through industry coalitions 32:03 Product-as-a-service as an alternative to take-back 34:25 Data sharing across competitors for circular loops 36:44 Outro About Legrand is a French company specializing in electrical and digital building infrastructure. Its circular economy activities include improving product design, increasing the use of recycled materials, reducing waste and extending product lifetimes. Circul'R is a French circular economy consultancy that supports companies in developing and implementing circular strategies and business models. Its work covers areas such as eco-design, resource use, reuse and the transition towards more circular value chains. Further Links https://www.legrand.de/de https://www.circul-r.com/en One-page Summary Sign-up for the Circularity.fm Newsletter and get a summary with the take-aways of this episode. Register here: https://circularity.fm/episode/product-take-back-weee-choosing-the-right-r-strategy/