Green Skills in Manufacturing: Unlocking a Circular Economy for Sustainability and Profitability
In industrial and manufacturing industries, the term ‘Green Skills’ refers to the knowledge and abilities required for operating resource and waste efficient production processes. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization groups ‘Green Skills’ into four overarching categories – Engineering Skills, Science Skills, Operational Skills, and Monitoring Skills.
Engineering Skills are the design and manufacturing skills needed to physically create green technology, such as New Product Design Engineers in the field of Advanced Building Materials. Science Skills encompass the theoretical and innovation aspects of positions such as Research and Development Leaders in the Specialty Chemicals industry. Operational skills are often possessed by upper-level management professionals, whose roles include titles such as Chief Sustainability Officer, with the responsibility of leading company-wide lean manufacturing and lifecycle management initiatives. Monitoring Skills refers to the legal and regulatory aspects of technological manufacturing that support the science and engineering teams; a common example would be a Chief Regulatory Compliance Officer responsible for managing state, local, and federal regulations as well as emergency management operations.
The Chatham Group CREST Recruiting Team was born out of our clients’ need to address difficulties in finding talent in the broader field of sustainable manufacturing. The acronym CREST itself stands for the five specific areas of sustainability we have identified will most benefit our clients. These are Circularity, Regulatory, Environmental Health, Stewardship, and Technology. In this article, we will be doing a deep-dive into the concept of Circularity, or more broadly, The Circular Economy of modern manufacturing.
Circular Economy refers to all aspects of business focused on the reuse, recycling, and lifecycle extension of raw materials, waste materials, and finished products. The ultimate achievement of a circular production economy is to transform waste into resource, thus taking the first step into a future of sustainable manufacturing. Circularity initiatives are a modern take on the traditional concept of nose-to-tail production seeking to look at every inch of a process in order to improve yields, find alternative use cases for production byproducts, and keep production equipment running longer.
The Karo Sambhav Foundation describes the Circular Economy as a paradigmatic shift towards a set of 4 distinct manufacturing concepts: Reuse, Recycle, Reduce, and Rethink. Our objective is to define these four concepts in an actionable manner with real-world examples from our clients who have had success with implementing these elements into their processes, and their value stream.
Reuse is defined conceptually as a product lifecycle extension, which in turn prolongs the revenue stream. Developing new and emergent green technologies takes time and resources, oftentimes considerably so. Product lifecycle extension strategies such as new market penetration through consumer psychology, updating advertisements to highlight environmental friendliness, and making incremental green technology upgrades to existing product lines allow our clients to take the first step in the development of their circular economy without great sunk cost. We recently placed a Global Operational Marketing Leader for a client in the biomass-derived industrial lubricants industry. Their key responsibilities are not only to lead new green technology product development initiatives but also to revamp their existing marketing to highlight the advantages of these lubricants in high-temperature industrial applications. Our candidate brought over 15 years of experience in PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), Product Stewardship, and S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning) and was an expert in Stage Gate Process Strategy and Brand Strategy Development.
We’re sure most readers have a general idea as to what Recycle refers to in sustainable manufacturing; however, the Karo Sambhav Foundation defines it as: closing the loop. A closed loop is what defines a truly ‘Circular’ Economy. This point may seem obvious, but a shocking number of our clients struggle with defining exactly what it is they are looking for. Candidates with the skill set to turn production waste and byproducts into alternative revenue streams can provide great value. One recent placement we completed in this area was for a Recycling Business Development Manager for a key client in the building materials industry. This new position is responsible to direct the strategy and manage the recycling of product reclaim generated throughout the life cycle (e.g., manufacturing, distribution, installation, etc.) of their products and support the company’s sustainability goals for waste reduction. The “business development” aspect of this role arose from the need to work effectively with all key stakeholders – both external and internal – to develop a systems approach to processing recycled materials in a manner that supports environmental standards and integrates seamlessly with manufacturing and business processes.
Concept three is Reduce, or Waste Reduction. This involves developing production processes from the ground up with the proactive strategy of reducing raw material, packaging, and overconsumption waste. With several clients in the Consumer Products, Packaging, and Container Manufacturing industries, we have first-hand experience with the needs of companies to develop minimalist packaging and ultra-efficient consumable goods. We had recently placed a Chief Operating Officer for a leading Personal Care product manufacturer in New Jersey that was looking for an individual with detailed packaging operational experience, particularly regarding bottling waste reduction and minimalist packaging as objectives. We were able to find a key leader with direct small bottling and packaging leadership skills with an accomplished history of reducing waste (plastic, paperboard and glass), labor, Work in Progress, and overall raw material usages in a complementary business. The COO had a rich history of using tools such as Kaizen, lean, 5S, and Continuous Improvement to successfully accomplish and exceed company objectives.
The fourth and final concept is known as Rethink, which means to totally redesign your products and production processes around the concept of Circularity. Rethinking the system is an out-of-the-box way of creating something new rather than limiting yourself within a fundamentally broken system. An example of rethinking innovation is a recent placement we made for a key client who is committed to applying customer-centric approaches to their innovation portfolio. This position – Senior Innovation Analyst, Market Insights – is expected to play a critical role in conducting quantitative customer and market research to create actionable insights that will shape product and service innovations. This individual will be applying a broad toolkit, including Design Thinking, to drive improvements in their innovation and sustainability initiatives.
Thought leaders and candidates with green skills in the discipline of Circularity and Circular Production Economy offer significant benefits to our clients in the Advanced Building Materials, Specialty Chemicals, and Consumer Packaging industries. Innovators have developed processes to reclaim materials such as polymers and composites from construction waste in order to transform them into new building material technologies, they have developed processes to minimize product packaging solutions in order to reduce landfill waste, and they have created recycling methods such as advanced thermal decomposition reactions for use in the Specialty Chemicals Industry. We believe that all businesses within our target industries stand to realize a boost in profitability and market share by hiring talent to develop their Circular Economies.
Contact the CREST Recruiting Team at The Chatham Group to set up a consultation on how investing in Circularity leadership will increase the sustainability and profitability of your organization: