The circular economy concept has become indispensable in how we view and work towards a sustainable future. While its principle of minimising waste streams by connecting material loops and regenerating natural systems is quite straight forward, the processes within the circular economy system represented by the biological and technical cycles are rather complex.
Even more challenging is scaling new business in the circular economy, especially when applications, products and services are based on bio-waste.
The butterfly diagram below visualises this complexity.
This post was originally written by Bax & Company consultant David Fernández for Parcel and Postal Technology magazine.
COVID-19 has caused short-term disruptions and long-term structural changes in many sectors, and urban logistics is no exception. E-commerce has experienced soaring growth, particularly for groceries and home care, as a result of people buying significantly more online. In fact, companies like DHL claim that parcel shipment numbers now match those of Christmas peak times1. …
“it is possible that we will experience 100x in computation capacity in the next 10–15 years”.
Bax & Company’s Marc Verbenkov takes a deep dive into exponential technological growth and why many people might continue to suffer from ‘future shock’.
If you have had any recent discussions about the speed at which technologies are being developed and how they are changing our society, you most probably have heard the exasperated comments of people saying that it is happening too quickly. Perhaps you yourself think this or have expressed it at one time or another.
by David Fernández & Ignacio Magallón
THE FUTURE OF URBAN LOGISTICS
With a growing global population concentrated in cities, urban freight transport (UFT) — defined as all movements of goods into, out from, through or within the urban area — is broadly recognised as a fundamental part of economic trade. This growing number of vehicle and transport needs in urban areas is having a severe impact on cities’ quality of life. …
What does the future of blockchain look like? There has been much discussion around the so-called “competition” between public and private blockchains. Public blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are transparent, open, distributed ledgers, in principle for anonymous or pseudonymous participants. Private blockchains such as Corda and Hyperledger integrate certain restrictions to allow for more control and privacy, which makes them valuable for industry-level businesses. However, what are the main differences and respective benefits between the two? Will they be used for different cases or are they actually directly competing? …
Opening up data doesn’t automatically lead to a better public service delivery. Cities should know that, when looking at public service innovation, there are several benefits to applying a challenge-driven approach. Rather than simply opening up public data, a well-defined city challenge can mobilise and guide solution providers to develop data-driven products that are more aligned with city ambitions, recent examples of which are described in more detail in this previous insight.
by Judith Schuermans, Simone Ploemacher & Sebastiaan van Herk
Once the specifics of the urban challenges are clearly set out, there are several ways the challenges and their…
Bax & Company is proud to announce its collaboration with international mobility expert Nico Larco (Principal and Partner of Larco/Knudson, Professor at University of Oregon and Director of the Urbanism Next Center) to work with Rotterdam on their urban mobility innovation programme.
by Giel Mertens, Nico Larco & Rolf Bastiaanssen
Cities are constantly looking to improve the quality of life for their citizens. New mobility (technology enabled, on-demand, shared transportation options) has the potential to help cities reduce both carbon emissions and traffic congestion, thus improving the liveability of cities. However, without the right strategy in place, new mobility could…
“Steering the development of (new) digital mobility (services) towards achieving sustainability goals and greater social inclusion is key to enabling new opportunities for everyone and widening social uptake”.
by Albert Serra, Nacho Sarrió & Ignacio Magallon
The introduction of digital technologies to mobility (services) has led to many positive outcomes such as real-time information availability, on-demand personalised services and more. However, have new problems risen as well? One of the highest risks with the digital transformation of transport is increasing mobility exclusion derived from an imbalance in digital skills and knowledge among the population1. However, digital mobility services also offer…
In this edition of Beyond Bax, we speak to Jordi Jacas Biendicho, a staff scientist at IREC (the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research) and coordinator of COBRA, a new European initiative on next-generation sustainable lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries. We discuss the current state of the electric vehicle battery landscape and COBRA’s promising technologies.
High-performing energy storage devices such as batteries play a vital role in the transition to clean energy, since they can balance the often fluctuating capacity of renewable sources. E xtensive research has been done in the past decade to improve battery performance in capacity, flexibility, efficiency, cycling…
In collaboration with Additive Manufacturing expert at Sirris, Benjamin Denayer, we’ve outlined some of the main barriers hindering the adoption of 3D printing and ways we can overcome them in the next few years.
by Maarten Buysse, Benjamin Denayer & Ignacio Magallon
Additive manufacturing (AM), perhaps more commonly known as 3D printing (3DP), was coined over 30 years ago. Gradually gaining traction over the years, the real hype surrounding 3D printing didn’t start until around 15 years ago. …
