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C. Waste Management & Circular Economy
Operations
How might we better manage our waste and implement circular economy solutions?
Challenge Description
Waste segregation is an integral part of proper waste management that requires cooperation from multiple stakeholders along the value chain. Waste from building occupants and users such as guests in serviced apartments, shoppers and tenants in shopping malls, and tenants in office buildings present an untapped potential for reuse and circularity. Waste sorting and segregation remains a challenge that could be suitable for robust robotics.
Venturing beyond the existing take-make-waste economic model, a circular economy (also referred to as “circularity”) is a concept aimed at overall limiting waste and promoting the continual use of resources. It employs rethink, reduce, re-use, repair, refurbish, recover, and recycle to create a closed-looped economic system. There could similarly be opportunities for circularity for construction waste.
CapitaLand seeks innovations to reduce pressure on environment, improve security of raw materials supply, and deliver long term economic value. Currently, the challenges faced include forging the right partnerships to create an ecosystem for segregation, circularity, and solutions that can cost effectively minimize or repurpose one's waste into high-value products.
Pain Points
C.01 Limited options to recycle or reuse or repurpose waste into higher value products
C.02 Limited space to implement recycling equipment due to large footprint
C.03 Lack of traceability and verification processes on origin of waste
C.04 Lack of incentives for stakeholders to identify technologies and solutions that establish partnerships with other companies and create the close-looped circular system
C.05 Hard to implement effective measures to influence behaviour and habits of users (e.g., waste segregation or recycling in serviced apartments, tenants in shopping mall)
C.06 Lack of means to clearly measure and demonstrate the benefits of waste segregation (e.g., food and non-food waste, recyclables and non-recyclables)
C.07 Difficult to enforce waste segregation even if it is a mandatory requirement
C.08 Labour intensive process during backend waste sorting if segregation is not performed properly at source
C.09 Lack of incentive and motivation for customers to cooperate and play their part on waste segregation
C.10 Existing solutions are either low impact (i.e., recycling bins) or too expensive to implement (i.e., AI/robotic waste segregation)
Solution Requirements
We seek solutions to improve the efficacy of recyclable waste (e.g., food waste, plastic waste) segregation at source for the portfolio of CapitaLand's properties that meet the following requirements:
- Call to action - solutions that include educating and engaging stakeholders in waste segregation
- Measurable and trackable - clear calculation methods and auditability of data
- Cost efficient - strong financial benefits relative to its cost
- Carbon reduction - measurable reduction in carbon emissions
- Enhanced ecosystem for circularity - Partnerships, programs, platforms and/or solutions to close the loop
- Ready to pilot - at least Technological Readiness Level 8 with proof of implementation
Opportunity Areas
Opportunity areas include but are not limited to:
- Recovery of waste heat
- Building integrated solar PV or modular PV panels of high-capacity output or co-location of solar PV with rooftop farming
- Best in class energy efficient solutions that optimise heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) and lighting
- Efficient energy management