Bleckmann, a logistics expert specializing in supply chain management for fashion and lifestyle brands, is awarded with the prestigious ‘U.S. Re-X Before Recycling Prize’. In Phase 1 of this competition we have won $ 50,000. In total Federal funding of $5.6 million is available and technical assistance will be provided by the Department of Energy. The departments’ national laboratories will support Bleckmann’s’ Renewal Workshop to unlock opportunities that can reintegrate end-use products back into the economy.
Award goal
The goal of the Re-X Before Recycling Prize is to promote innovative new projects and business that increase the recovery and reuse rate of end-use products to reduce the embedded energy and carbon of manufactured goods, strengthen regional production chains, increase U.S. supply security, create jobs and reduce environmental burdens from extraction, landfill and incineration.
Advancing Circular
The American manufacturing sector currently primarily follows a linear production model in which raw materials are extracted, processed into products and parts, used and discarded-known as the take-make-waste model. To fully decarbonize the U.S. economy, the country must create new, circular supply chains to keep materials in use longer. While recycling plays an important role in this circular economy, approaches that extend the life of goods can save more energy and emissions over time than recycling alone. Bleckmann's Renewal Workshop is a service that fits perfectly with the effort to become even more circular in the U.S. fashion and lifestyle sector and this award enables the company to implement innovations faster. This will help new and current clients meet their circularity goals.
Global economy
As the global economy adapts to new parameters, putting circularity at the center of a business allows Bleckmann to be best prepared for this change. As Nicole Bassett, Circular Solutions Lead, said: “A circular service like Bleckmann’s Renewal Workshop will have other success criteria that, once measured and integrated, can benefit society as a whole. In the future, not only profit but also carbon impact, resource use, community enhancement, and improvements in general well-being will count toward determining a successful business. The circular economy must meet the needs and well-being of both upstream and downstream stakeholders in the supply chain”.
Change requires getting up every day and working differently than the day before. We hope the Renewal Workshop can support the change of our clients. And while it can be difficult to cut through the noise of what is real and what is not, our experience at Bleckmann is to do the work and hope that our actions become our proof. As stated in our CEO's report: "In our vision of the future, logistics will become the backbone of a circular economy for fashion and lifestyle products. Our solutions will gradually be integrated into a new all-in-one renewal and logistics offering."
