Circularity and the Last Mile

In my day job I consult on tech investments and acquisition. The subject of circularity in gaining a lot of ground due to growing EU policy requirements in a number of sectors. Recently I’ve been evaluating proposals to various funding initiatives for circularity initiatives, and in most food-based calls there is always an applicant proposing the circularity of a product like coffee grounds.

To make a long story short, the idea is to collect coffee grounds and then recycle or upcycle into something else. But this cafe in Cyprus illustrates the problem. Even when superlative reuse and packaging are followed and the grounds are given away for free, there are few takers.

At the B2C level, very few of us grow flowers on our balconies or homes anymore, and very few of us within the city limits have gardens. Contrast this to the Boomer generation, which would always grow something no matter what the space or context. I remember growing up in Athens, where my parents kept flowers on the balconies, and where in the suburbs like Aghia Paraskevi and Melissia all the apartment blocks and houses had some form of garden on the ground floor.

So, in the interests of better understanding this, I have some questions for anyone reading this article:

1. If you were to find recycled coffee grounds for soil enrichment in a context like IKEA or Leroy Merlin or Superhome, would you buy them?

   
   

2. If you were to find coffee grounds for free at a one of these retail venues, would you accept them?

   
   

3. Even if you don’t have a garden or flowerpots yourself, and the products were offered for free, would you get some for a friend or relative you care for?

4. Are there any cultural or other reasons why one should or should not grab a pack of these very cool used coffee grounds at this café? Is it not cool enough? Are there any fear factors involved?

   
   

5. What would happen if the barrista at the cafe prompted you to take a pack?

By asking these questions, I’m trying to understand if context matters, i.e. the retail environment in which we make choices. And if we, as social beings, have the level of altruism apparently needed to make circularity work in a daily context.

Circularity, by the way, will be getting increasingly important in daily life. By 2030, for example, the European Commission has mandated that 100% of textiles and garments sold in Europe are recyclable or repairable, or made of recycled fibers.

In the automotive sector, end-of-life management has been mandated for a number of substances, with batteries forming an urgent priority. At GR1T, our motorcycle startup, we are already planning for full end-of-life management (of the entire motorcycle), accompanied by full digital passports and live traceability of each motorcycle we produce.

But clearly, a core challenge here is both industry and consumer acceptance. I can’t think of a more perfect analogy of why circularity is not taking hold than these sad, untouched coffee grounds.

Even when offered for free, the socioeconomic / cultural context and targeting is such that consumers apparently don’t respond. Is the question going through consumer minds “should I be altruistic … or do I want to carry a pack of waste home with me?”

Contrast this with the B2B channel: if a B2B enterprise like a retailer, a landscaping / gardening company, an agricultural / fertilizer supplier or an equivalent firm were using this and claiming “50% made from recycled materials”, chances are this would signal a virtue and consumer acceptance would follow.

In other words, the same material that fails completely in a B2C context becomes valuable the moment it is embedded within a B2B supply chain.

One of the insights I take away from this example is that circularity does not necessarily fail at the level of policy or technology. It fails at the level of human behavior: and we are still designing and proposing systems as if that problem does not exist.

I’m genuinely interested to understand whether this is a Cyprus-specific phenomenon, or whether we are all overestimating how far consumer behaviour has actually evolved.

How would you respond in this situation?