 Thank you for joining today's event. Please stand by for about one minute as we let people join the room and get situated. We hope you enjoy today's presentation. Hi, everyone. Welcome. Thanks for joining. I'm Kellan Betz, excited to be your host today. I'm, of course, lead in the MITx MicroMasters and Spy Chain Management program. And today we're fortunate to have Dr. Edgar Gutierrez Franco to speak with us. Welcome, Edgar. Hello, everyone. Very happy to be here. Thank you, Kellan, for the invitation. Awesome. So for those of you who've attended our events in the past, we like to start things off with a poll. And so let's kick off that first poll, please. Awesome. So first poll, why are you here today? I'm just trying to get a feel for everyone in the audience. A few of the options I want to learn more about circular supply chain and circular economy in general. I'm interested in more about research at MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, or CTL. I want to know more about connections between circularity, supply chain circularity, and sustainability. A few of the options there. And so thank you for spending our quick poll. And while we have that poll going, I want to do a couple of quick announcements and an agenda for today. And so first, I know many of you are in our MicroMasters course, Supply Chain Dynamics, SC3x. Hope you're enjoying learning about supply chain dynamics and supply chain strategy. For those of you who might be still considering going for the certificate in this course, please note that the deadline for registering for the verified certificate is tomorrow, May 4. This is not a deadline we can extend. So I would encourage you all of you to go for a certificate. It opens up more content within the course. Gives you access to great assignments and the exams. It's also necessary to pursue the MicroMasters credential. You can also get that verified certificate for completing the course. And so again, the deadline for registering for the verified certificate is tomorrow, May 4. So make sure you do that ASAP if you're considering doing so and you haven't done it already. So with that, for the brief agenda, for the next 45 minutes or so, Edgar will introduce the concept of circular supply chains. Talk about some of the research in this area that he's involved in here at MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. In the last 15 minutes or so, we'll be saved for your questions. Please use that webinar Q&A feature, that Zoom feature there, the button on the bottom, the Q&A, and be sure you're logged in with a name. We will not be reading anonymous questions. Love to see the discussion and introductions in the chat. But again, please use that webinar Q&A so we can keep track of those questions. And so with that, let's check in on the results of that first poll. Awesome, so why are you here today? Looks like most of you or the greatest share, almost 50% of you wanna learn more about circular supply chains and circular economy in general, that's awesome. Edgar will have lots of insights to share on that. Looks like a lot of you are also interested in the connection between circularity and sustainability, so that's awesome as well. And Edgar will have lots of insights to share on that. Edgar, do you have any thoughts on that, those poll results there? That's great, I love it. I mean, we have a lot of interest in the topic and I see people that really want to work today. So I'm very happy for that. Awesome, so with that in mind, let's kick things off. Let's move the poll here. So let's kick things off and let me introduce our speaker today, Edgar. So Dr. Edgar Gutierrez Franco is a postdoctoral researcher and Fulbright scholar here at MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. The focus of his current research is on omnichannel retail distribution strategies, circular supply chains, including mathematical models and data-driven solutions, some of which I know he'll be speaking about today. He received his PhD at the University of Central Florida in Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, where he focused on last mile decision support systems. So we're very lucky to have Edgar here today to present building supply chain networks in a circular economy, opportunities and analytical models, modeling solutions for sustainable circular supply chains. So with that, please welcome Edgar. Edgar, please take it away. Thank you very much, Kellen, and welcome everyone. Welcome to this seminar. I'm very happy to be here. I'm very happy to share this with you. All right, so let's start. This is a big agenda for today. For example, we'll do an introduction of where circular supply chains are and they are dealing with the importance of those. And we'll touch about reversal statistics and close block supply chains. Then we will learn how to build circular supply chains and we go over questions. So everything, when we go over supply chains, we always seen how everything started and everything started with the sources. So we are here taking resources from the nature. You know, that doesn't mean for the last probably 150 years with all the industrial revolution we are having all the petroleum, all mines. So we take those materials. After we take, we go and we make stuff. We make things and we are very efficient doing stuff. We make all the manufacturing, let's say automotive or plastics or things that we are doing. And after we make, so we use it. And if we use it, so we go over all the disposal. So what we do after use of consumption, we just dispose the material. And that is having some kind of problems because we have a lot of those 82 billion tons around. And the other thing is we also have limited resources. So even that we are doing this, we're very happy distracting all the materials. We are going to scarcity and that scarcity and that behavior in our economy are being in a linear consumption. So we always take the raw material, we do manufacturing, we distribute, there are some users and then we dispose. But unfortunately, there are no limited natural resources. So there is a limitation. Now we know probably the last 10, 20 years, we know it's a fact. So there are studies that it's saying that we are deflecting in those materials, in those commodities. So what happened? Let's see what happened in history. So here from the 1900, this is the price for commodities. This is our economic form study. We'll see how we are very efficient, bringing down prices, since 2000 prices start rising. So the resources prices rise and that was a problem now, because obviously there is no materials, no commodities. The price go up because there are more difficult to get it. And obviously here is up home for different industries. So it is one thing, prices and scarcity. And the third stuff is we have now a lot of waste and a lot of waste is 2.12 billion tons of waste that we are done every year worldwide. There's a lot of waste complexity because we have electronic waste, hazardous chemicals, materials. And one of the ways to solve that problem is through waste management. So we have to do very waste management, how adapting logistic systems. And this creates a lot of pressure in legislation. So we have a lot of laws, different countries, probably in your country, you have different laws in other country, or maybe you are starting having those. There are others that are more advanced developers, but we have legislation over that waste that are pressures on environment. We know that all the movement with climate change and all the process that we are living today and maybe is related with this and obviously the social responsibility. That would take a lot of our companies working in social responsibility. All of this obviously create challenges. What are the challenges though? How to keep resources in use for as long as possible because we are deflecting, we don't have the resources. How to extract the maximum value from the materials that well is in use. How to recover and regenerate those products and materials and the end of the service life. And the most important and the one that I mean, love it. And when we're always with people, show me the money. How we can be profitable. What is the return investment of this? What can I get? I need to keep up with my business. So that is important and there are challenges. And all of those challenges are, let's say, handling but the circular economy. So besides those questions that we have, the circular economy are looking to have fewer products that we discard to have less material that we extract and to be better in the environment. So we want to maintain the value of those products and materials as long as we can. All right, so there are a lot of opportunities. Circular economy is an opportunity. We know for a fact that the linear consumption is reaching its limits and the circular economy has benefits and in the terms of operations, the strategy in the micro and macro economy level. So we are talking here around a trillion dollar opportunity with huge potential for innovation, job creation and economic growth. So this is awesome. Many academia, industry, governments are working on this. We now are in this area. And what do we have? So what is the general idea? So we make our products, we use them but we have to return those products. And we are here in the MicroMasters Supply Chain Management. What are the best that we can do in returns? That piece of returns is one of the most challenging pieces because we need to bring back our products. And that part is difficult after they use. So we have to figure out how to bring back those products. Let me show you a very quick example. So they say here, we have a jacket. I'm in the jacket at the beginning when it's new. So they have a little value, right? So we start using it and in the linear economy, this is the black line, after I use it, I throw it away and then there's nobody. But in the yellow, that is the circular economy, I can resell it. Let's say that I start using and using then here I can do some refurbish over that jacket and then increase the value. I start using again, again, again and after using for a while, I can recycle. And then I come back and they have a new product or the same product and then they'll repeat. So you can see this is a very gap in what it can do with circular economy or linear economy. Probably some of you are asking what are the environmental implications? Because so far we talk about, we don't have the materials there are the collecting prices are high. We have to collect it, but how about the environment? So this one here is another study that we get. We know in production, that is the yellow part. We have a lot of greenhouse gases and emissions in this part of the production. So we have here the giant production on the raw material production. And in this study, we know that recycling plastic uses lower energy compared to the process of making virgin plastic from a scratch, right? So we are talking about three X more energy to produce. So there is still a lot of studies and discussion what is best, but so far studies and people that have been deep in this are saying, okay, yes, it's better to have recycling to reuse materials is state of having from the air and using from the big. All right, so with all of this, let's see what countries are doing. So we have this one, the European Commission that you have a new circular economy action plan. This is 2020. So if you are interested, this document is awesome. You can see what all the different plans here. United States, the environmental protection agency had a full plan national recycling strategy that you have all what we are doing and how they are doing. China, circular economy, they're starting a new five-year plan and they have everything explaining the development plan for the circular economy. And you can see this is 2021. So this is a movement that are, you know accelerating in the last 10 years. All right, so with this, Kellan, I think it's a good time to do our second poll. Awesome, thank you, Edgar. We love to launch that second polls. We'd love to have your thoughts on this next question. So what are some of your experiences with waste recycling and similar concepts? Some of the options, maybe you're not worried about it and that's okay. Maybe you have experience of too much packaging waste from online shopping, you know, lots of plastic and cardboard you send to our houses. Interesting question I always find is what do you do with your old cell phones? Maybe you stash them like me, you stash them in a drawer at home or maybe you have better strategies for those old cell phones. So we'd love to have your insights on these questions here. So Edgar, I don't know if you want to, you know, maybe jump into then your next slide and then we'll pause briefly and then come back to the results while they- Wonderful, perfect. All right, so let's continue. So let's see what is the scope of circular circularity in supply chains. Let's see, we will bring one of the concepts and how the concept are being building it probably in the last 20 years. Oh, we have here. Okay, this is the results. I'm seeing the results, Kelly. Yeah, no, awesome. Yeah. Thank you everyone for participating in our poll. So it looks like, you know, most of you have the experience with packaging waste from online shopping. That's very interesting. I definitely, certainly can relate to that for sure. So Edgar, I don't know if you have any thoughts on- That's awesome, yeah. I see the second one is I take reusable bags with me to grocery. That's awesome. I love it. I know most of you are a MicroMasters students. Perfect. And the third one, I wish I could reduce the amount of plastic waste but I know where to start. That is totally true. And that's why we are here. We are helping people, helping, you know, the both sides. There is the stakeholders, people that produce the waste and people that collect the waste. So that's awesome. Okay, and the fourth one is what do I do when I also post? I have been at Robert at home. Yeah, it happens. Yeah, it happens. But we'll see after this discussion and if you get involved, probably we'll teach the first answer. All right, wonderful. So let's continue. So I was saying, it's a couple of circularity in supply chains. So let's bring some of the concepts. So we have reverse logistics. Square reverse logistics is all the process, all the actions that I take to bring reusable and recyclable products and materials back into the forward supply chain. And that can be in the same or in different industries. So there are processes, reverse logistics, there are processes, there are tasks, there are full departments and different companies that are taking this into account to do all these reverse logistics. What is closed-loop supply chains that are some that integrate forward and reverse supply chains? And most of the time, they are in the same industry. So they can close the loop in my supply chain. And circular supply chains are those that besides the closed-loop supply chain and the reverse logistics, they go over open-loop flows. What does it mean? They can go to a different product or different industry or to the land view. Let's see this in some graph. So this is reverse logistics. So I have the forward in black and they have the reverse logistics in blue. So you can see that they've taken after the customers. So I have to make some process to come back to some of my stores or fulfillment centers or they have to go to recycling plants. The closed-loop supply chains, so that we are sure that we are in the same industry, doing the same processes but over the same use. And circular supply chains are the same closed-loop, but we open to other industries or we can go to another purposes on other products. So here we have a big opportunity and an alternative. We know that a circular supply chain model is an alternative for the traditional linear supply chain that we saw at the beginning. So with that, let me start with resources, with materials. We want to bring back products. We want to bring back those materials and they are divided. Let's see how they're divided in the supply chain. So we have biological or renewable materials. This is one classification and the other one is technical materials. From the biological, we have the forest, we have water, air, everything that connects to the earth, right? But it's very big and we can use technical materials like plastic, metal, glass, different type of dams, copper. And with these two, we are trying to figure out how to maintain those as long as possible. Remember that we talked about circular economy and now with the process. So let's start with biological materials, the renewables. So we go over this, we go with the manufacturer, we do all the parts, we have to take them, process them. When we go over the consumer, we have to somehow take that product and do some kind of collection. And that collection, it can go over biochemical feedstock. So we go over biochemical feedstock and we'll use it again. We always go to biogas, biofuels. We can create bioethanol. This is how we call regeneration. And obviously we have our animals and how the air creates farming and collections. That way it goes and they go again and again. So there are biological materials, renewable materials. Now let's see technical materials. There are what we call thinned materials. They go over the same process, manufacturer, right? I create my product, I go to the service over the consumer and I have to collect it again. And what can I do? I can repair or maintain the products. I can reuse or redistribute. I can refurbish or remanufacture or I can recycle. So there are different looks that we have here and there are different arts that are the famous arts in sacred supply chains. All right, so if we take these two and we join them, we have this. This is the Ellen McCartney Foundation definition of our sacred economy. For some of you that like this topic, I highly recommend Ellen McCartney. They have a lot of examples. They've been working in this the last years. Definitely it is some of the lineage in this part. So they join both and it's very call it in terms of renewable and finite materials. All right, with this now we are clear in the network but the network and how it works, we are clear in our materials or products. So we have now the big picture. So where now let's go and let's bring down this to a concept. So if we have the use of those romantic manufacturing and distribution and we want to change this, we don't have the disposal. We want to eliminate disposal and have returns and those returns go over that we just saw, no? Recycle, remanufacture, repair and reuse. So one of my favorite definitions in circular supply chains. This one is from the circular supply chain network. Also if you like this, you can see this in more detail. This is 2021 definition. Circular supply chains are interconnected systems or supply chains that use secondary and renewable inputs those that we just saw to generate value by reducing and maximizing the source use. There are other couple of other definitions and I'll read all of them, but if you are interested one is by Batista in 2018 and he highlighted forward and reverse supply chains where they can join. And then in 2009, Oroki and the other authors they bring the definition of integration of circular thinking, system thinking. I know some of you are seeing system dynamics in the MicroMaster. So this how you bring the system thinking in this process. Again, they also talk about business models, service to design in all life and waste management. All right, so now we know the definition. We have the concepts. Now let's see what to solve with a circular supply chain. That is where we're talking today. We are learning what are the circular supply chains and how to build them and how to do it. So what do we have to solve here? First, we have to create what is the scenarios? We have to monetize waste. So there is no circular supply chain, no circular economy if they are not profitable. So we have to make some profit. That is important. How can it source from local suppliers? Now after COVID, we know the importance of this. How to be more resilient? How to get shorter supply chains? How to, I can work with local suppliers because they are also inflation over our materials. What should be my network design? That the people we are here in the supply chain work, we love it, network design. How will be my forward and reverse logistics? How to create shorter supply chains? And the most important, how can I do collaboration between stakeholders? As you can see, all of those questions that are in any industry, government, any organization that is in front of a circular supply chain challenge, I'm asking, and they have to answer those questions. Now most of them that are supply chain operations and that's where we are here. All right, so let's see now with what tools can we answer these questions? Definitely with analytics. We have to use analytics tools. That is the way it is our tool belt that we have. Let me divide it in three different analytics scopes and then we'll see the use cases. So first, we have to be very descriptive. We have to understand what is happening. What did it happen? What is the problem? How many sources do I have? What is happening in my industry or in my location of what I want to do with this? So there's a lot of descriptive analytics. Also, I have to have predictive analytics. Once I know that I want to create my circular supply chain, I have to predict what and when is something going to happen, how they will solve it, where are the trains that I have, what could it happen, and what actions can we take? Once we have this, we have the description, we know what is happening, so we know that prices are up, there is no material, we have to recover, what we'll do. We have to predict where is the material and who I will take it. What is the frequency of customer will do it? I have to do a prescription. I have to choose what is the best action to take. And all of that, it is possible to do it with analytic tools. And between the analytics tools and the world of analytic tools, I make this, let's say there's a big picture. So we have the analytic tools and we have, in some part, the operations research tools that I know most of you are seeing this and we have also the artificial intelligence and both are working together. And each of those, they have their own methodologies and techniques, as I say, this is our tool belt. All right, so now we have the challenge and we have the tools to solve our challenge. So let's create several supply chains. So first, I take the reality, I see what I want to do. I want to go over plastic, metal, glass, depending on what I want to do, or if this isn't the technical material, or if I go over a rhythm on my tickets. So I took those, I have to take all that data, analytic data and create models. What I created models, because I need to have a plan. And with that plan, we create the scenarios and we can do the predictions. And after we'll do all of this that we learned that we proved that we use those analytics, I have to go and talk with the people because they have to be actionable. That is the people who will execute whatever we do. So in a nutshell, what I'm doing here, we are taking this part of modeling, instead to create just from scratch and just from the gut, but we are trying to take those analytics to bring to life several supply chains. So I taking data and that data becomes an information, that information becomes knowledge, that knowledge into wisdom. And with that wisdom, I can take action. And with that, I can have all my feedback process and create strategies for secure supply chains. So now let's see examples, what we are doing. So let's see one, technical material. So one of the classic technical materials that I mean working probably in every corner of the board is a scrap metal recycle. So we have here, this is the city, we have around 20 million work with pickers. That is a lot of people that are families, 20 million probably families that live for this. That is another area that we'll talk maybe in another webinar, we'll talk about this in more detail. But we have a lot of, we have an industry just, we're here, here, we are just in the scrap metal. So we have a lot of people working in this and they're very important taking those materials. But we have copper, aluminum, you know, structure and metals, all the metals that we have. Then we go over the manufacturing and we put them, we create products again to insert those in society. So for some of you that are interested in this, this is a public paper that you can go over there, you can read, you can read the details. What do we use here? We use mixed integral linear programming. We did it to synchronize all the different flows and to minimize cost and to be very efficient in the collection of that process. All right, so example with technical material. Now let's jump to another example with renewable material. So this is another example here. We know that we can create biofuels. That biofuels can create it for different crops. So we have coconut, soybean, palm, urela, jetrofa. So there are a bunch of different crops that we can, you know, manufacture them and convert those crops in biofuels. Remember that are in the left side. There are renewable materials. So in this project, we take the palm oil production that are bigger palms. So the palm oil, they have different dimensions and how to analyze it. But here we are in the construction of building the biodiesel. And we have the oil extraction and we know that some of that palm oil can go for human consumption and other for biodiesel. And that project, we did it. We have been working a lot of renewable material and it's as well that is published so you can see the details here. We use at that time, the stochastic optimization mode. So for some of you there and seeing stochastic optimization simulations, stochastic linear programming as well. So that will probably will join very good this project. But we have all the details. And also we very recently use another project with other colleagues in the multi-objective optimization. So you can see we can use all those analytical models and create circular and efficient supply chains. All right, so these two, we went over technical materials, there are no materials that is a bunch of more examples but let me jump to collaboration. So in collaboration, we have key points to recover the material that we just talked, right? We need the collaboration of everyone in our shape. So obviously we have the speakers that are very important but those way speakers have to pick something and let it pick from the consumers. Even if the consumer is a citizen or is a company but they have to do it. And then I have to transport all the materials and I can transport in, you know, if I go and then I pick carton in one vehicle, this is another vehicle and pick glass, there's another vehicle that I pick plastic. So we see how we can collaborate and it's safe to have all those vehicles at the same time. We all can see how we can have one, how we can leverage all the networks that we already have and how we can create more volume creating that collection and trying to increase the amount of material that we can collect. So these up to collection. So this is one of the projects that we are working on here at the center. So how to shift those circular goals. So we are having this, let's see that we have a plastic bottle, right? And the plastic bottle, they come from religion plastics, right? They run here in the company. I take the bottle to, you know, it can be from the market store, you know, I do it by deliveries. And once that you have it, I have to figure out how I return that bottle. So we return the bottles that can come back to any of those places. It can be go to the e-commerce place or the local store and then have to go back to recycling plants. And with that, we close the loop, we create our circularity. So some benefits, reduce waste, reduce virgin materials and leverage the e-commerce net. So that is very important, very challenging. So we have to create all those reverse networks. We need the stakeholders collaboration. We need citizens. We need you to create and believe in this and I have to jump this to create better supply chains so that we can do it, how we can synchronize all of those operations. And obviously we need to find the cost and benefit allocation and how we do the design to know reciprocality. All right, let me go a little bit deep in collaboration. We can have here connecting specific years, consumer, three PLs and the material sector factories and the cycles. So if we hear, we are in this e-commerce marketplace. So imagine that someone go to your home and deliver a product and at the same time you bring them the plastic. You say, okay, thank you for the product but give me the viable video that this plastic they have or glass, whatever. So this is something that we are creating and there are, there's a lot of movement different parts of the work. Let's all figure it out because there is a lot of synchronization with the consumer. And once I take this, I can go to, you know, I can come back here from between the consumer and the e-commerce marketplace and then it go to the material cycle plant or I can create a smart MRF. If I create a smart MRF, so I want to say, all right, maybe if I do their allocation of those products where to have the, where just be located or it will be the flows between them maybe I can decrease cost and it will be better. So this is a project that is ongoing and we're trying to figure out we are using those analytics to understand the customer, to understand the flows, to understand the products to design the network to see what are the predictions in the volume that it's a lot of analytics that we are doing here and it's something that definitely it is very exciting field. All right, so this is all that we are having in our network design. In this last 10 minutes, let me talk a little bit about something that I know every part maybe every part of the work I'm gonna say the omnichannel retracts. Like I said, we went over technical analytics renewable analytics, network design obviously with omnichannel. So what happened in omnichannel? So we know that we can buy anytime, anywhere and in any device, right? We are saying this, the last 15 years probably we're seeing there are people that are buying and buying and buying. So what are the statistics? So online retail represents around 15% in USA, 17 in Europe, 27 in China and Latin is increasing as well, 5% and it's around 1920 World War. And we can see here, we are increasing this is for 2025. This is unstoppable force. We will start this increasing and that creates a lot of challenges, pressures and from projects in what dynamic fulfillment? We have to need optimal fulfillment. We need to do all the deliveries. And maybe you're asking how this is connecting with circular supply chains? Well, we are creating we should have to create those networks at the same time having our circularity in mind. Why? Because we have a lot of these are retail and deliveries and we are creating all the infrastructure resources doing deliveries, but that creates a great opportunity to manage all the dynamic fulfillment of the optimal fulfillment, our best delivery and obviously our returns. So we were one of the returns. We have to come back and see everything again. So that is very important that we are seeing as well in as a great opportunity to leverage the networks that it came that is for last 20, 25 years in order on the channel have been increasing but it's a great opportunity as well to create better networks for circularity. But it creates some uncertainties, right? So the quality of return products, the quantity return it, the product needs return it and they have obviously barriers. High investment, problem-restarting, additional transportation costs, all the things with communication, lack of integration. So we have to figure out how to do it. So there is a great, I love this at work when our director, she was working with other people and see how to create better networks and to join all the forward work and the reverse logistics. Why? Because we can buy anywhere and also return anywhere. So that is awesome. So if I can have, right, I can get my product anytime, anywhere, any device, we should have allowed to do the returns in any device, anywhere at any time. Working on this, if you are interested in this, it is a great paper. This one will explain what are the different details and how to create a mathematical model to create these two. All right, so I know we have a lot of questions. We have five minutes to take our takeaways. Hopefully you have enjoyed as much as I do it. So with this, let's see our takeaways. So first, we are creating decision support systems to build circular supply chains. So we are aiming to have better tools and decisions to do this possible. Because now we know there is a necessity, there is a necessity around the world. And it touch the people, because we see there is a lot of people that their lives are in this. There are all those waste recyclers, all the people that were in this, there we are touching people. We are touching the planet because we are trying to figure out how to reduce the extraction of virgin material and obviously to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions. And we definitely want to make profit. So we're going to make profits or reduce costs and educate them. So these are decision support systems to do that. So remember, we have the data. The data is in our environment, in our society, in all the behavior for all the organization and in societal industry, all the technical, economical systems, we have the data. We have the information. With that information, we use our models, we can create knowledge, right? Those analytics that we see, different techniques that we saw over the analytics umbrella. And with that knowledge, definitely, we are going to create that wisdom when we create our decisions. And at the end, we have to take action. And with that action, we have to touch all of our stakeholders. We have to touch our customers, our drivers, managers in the cities that everyone can share and participate in this type of supply chains. But with that, that we are doing, that is the thing that we're doing, that is something that we want you also can do it or participate in any of those words, meaning any of your, that is a space for everyone. And with that, we want to create those circular supply chains. And we go over recycle, re-manufacturing, repeal, reuse. All right, but circularity, we know it's a journey. And this journey we have here, value for stakeholders, all the stakeholders, internal and external. And we have the business requirements and we have the customer requirements. So that's important. So we are creating value. We have different levels of adoption. So far, we are seeing that the majority of organizations and governments around the world, they are here in real, they've recognized. Some other companies, there's a lot of examples, I would say, there are more, there are more in recognizing, they initiate it, they have pilot and they operationalize. They are here in the transform. And we have the transform. So we create a lot of value and we have a lot of adoption. So that is important. This is what we want. We are working, there are, you know, awesome examples that exist. If you go for any of the sources that we share with you today, you can see that. All right, more takeaways in these two minutes. Circular practices impact the economic performance. They can increase revenue and reduce cost. The circular supply chain options. So after this webinar, you can say, no, rethink, we'll have to rethink this, reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacturing and recycling. There's a lot of options. But it's any of those that is at work by themselves. Key supply chain process in circular supply chains. As we know, and here that we are the supply chain lovers, we are going working hard in collection and transportation, all the power of sorting and this position and everything with this division. And we know that circularity strategies allow different supply chains and systems to be interconnected, rethink. So we have connected here and we have to do it instead of create that value. So secondary renewable inputs can be used and this will generate value by reducing and maximizing the use of resources. All right, so with all of that, there are these the projects, the concept that is now possible without a team. This is our team here at CTL. We're working on their direction of the Renewed Resorture, Dr. Eva Ponce. We also are working with Dr. Imamborella and with Kellen. And we have our awesome students that we have a previous students and current students that are making projects for the capstone, the master thesis, or they are doing projects with their own companies where they are working. All right, Kellen. So with that, I want to thank you all and I think we are ready for questions. Thank you very much. Yeah, awesome. Thank you, Edgar. Such a great presentation, such an interesting area and so many different areas to go. This linear economy, this linear structure of our economy is so ingrained in the structure of the current economy. So it's kind of early days for, even though recycling is one of these concepts have been around for a long time, it's really kind of early days for some of these topics, so it's an exciting area. I'm also happy to see that some of our audience out there is finding connections between some of the coursework that they're learning in the MicroMessage Program and some of what you presented. And it looks like you might have some looking into your papers and so that's exciting. Cool, so we do have a few questions here in the Q&A that I wanted to jump to. And again, please use that Q&A feature if you have any questions for Edgar. And we have a bit of time that we can ask and I'll just kind of start here in order. And again, make sure that you're logged in with the name so that I won't be able to read an anonymous question. I also won't be able to bring you on. I see there's a hand raised too. Just make sure to enter your question there in the Q&A. So I'll start with a question here by Miguel Vera. It's actually a pretty challenging question. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, Edgar. But so his question is kind of about pricing, the pricing mechanism in the economy. And he says that recently there's been some challenges with the high price of recycled PET, so recycled plastic as an input compared to the virgin plastic inputs. And so his question is kind of how do companies or how are you seeing companies thinking about this in terms of maybe that trade-off between that pricing signal and profitability maybe with the potential impacts for profitability versus maybe their sustainability goals where they need to increase the amount of recycled content that they're using as inputs. Yeah, that's true. And any organization that want to go over over this kind of projects and create circularity, probably the main driver is how to reduce cost and obviously to create profit. But I will say that it's not as easy that it is not our decision that you take from one link to another. You have to use a lot of analytics and in that analytics, you have to identify each step and identifying each step, you can create the cost for each of those steps. So let's say, you know, one minute answer here but I would love to jump in and try to say that we have reusable packaging. So we have reusable packaging and we want to replace the single use plastic without reusable one. So what I have to do, I have to see how much that reusable packaging costs then how we'll bring back the plastic to me and then I have to clean it, inspection it, put it again for another customer or for the same customer and to do all the circularity. And with that, also at the same time, I have to compare with the breakpoint with the use of single plastics. So they make sense. They make sense for the environment, right? For the planet. They mentioned in the profit that I, okay, instead of buy all those single plastic, how I will put it in my network. Also, I will please in my customers, the old environmental friendly customers, they want to participate with that. And also I'm doing with people, right? I'm interacting with that. So it is challenging but it is working and that's why we are very excited with this kind of products. That's great. I'm going to say it definitely kind of also ties into the concept of using analytics, you know, because we can use analytics, try to identify and evaluate that break even point and those, some of those trade-offs and those opportunities with circularity. So, cool. We have some other quick, excuse me, we have a couple of other quick questions here that I wanted to jump into. And again, please use that cute webinar Q&A feature. We're not able to bring you on stage or anything like that in this webinar. And so I'll be looking at that Q&A feature. So this next question is very interesting going into the concepts or the challenges maybe around sorting. This question is by Prabhu Ajaya Balan. I apologize if I'm not pronouncing your name correctly but so this question is to enable a recycling of plastic material in an efficient way. Are there any policies or technologies which are capable of maybe helping with that sorting process or, you know, helping restricting multiple compounds used during manufacturing, maybe upstream as well. So, you know, technologies or policies, again kind of around plastic materials and the mixed plastic material system. Great question. I love that question because I'll let me to talk a little bit about the process after we do all the collection because we have a lot of it for trying to figure out how minimize cost and how to do it efficiently, how to create forecasting in order to collect the material or the products. But once we have all the products, so we have a different type of those products and we have to do all the sorting, cleaning, inspection, all that part. There are technology that, for example, can separate depending of the type of material that can separate, you know, they have the band and they put the products of the materials and with automation that can separate different materials. And that create, you know, a lot of efficiencies in terms of how I can get that faster, better. But this is still something that is that people that have been working. I mean, if industry probably mental is a plastic industry that are doing plastic they have with colors or with the type of plastic that you use. There are others that are more difficult, you know, if we are working with chemicals that can be a little bit more difficult. But definitely that part of sorting, inspection and cleaning is a key process. And it is also an opportunity to decrease cost and to be more efficient in terms of how to create more valuable products and materials to remanufacture and put it again in the society. Great question. Awesome, yeah, great question. And it ties into the next question I wanted to jump into but before we do that, let's launch this third poll here. We like to kind of close our events on a third poll. So I'd love to have your thoughts on this third poll and while you complete that I'll go into this next question by Deanna Garson. So it kind of ties into what you're mentioning just there previously. But her question is more about companies and firms and maybe even startups in this space and what firms or what companies or startups in this space should be we watching, you know, within the circular economy and circular supply chain space. Are there any kind of names or interesting, exciting companies that some of our attendees should keep an eye out for? Sure, sure. There is a lot of companies that have been working in this. One, let me see, one of the more famous, let me, I'm thinking in the resource packaging is one that the name is LOOP, L-O-O-P. So you go there, you will see LOOP and they're having how they are trying to their, you know, they have a system, total system and they help they collect items from users. Like two or three weeks ago, there's another cool example, Timberland, they launched their circular shoe that is awesome because they use a lot of, you know, tires and different products that are reusable. So go watch Timberland, I know Nike also have the visible shoe that in terms of retail. But definitely one thing that we can see across of the companies, there are more examples, there are dozens of examples that you can see in detail. For example, in the L.M. McCartney Foundation, it is, there is something that is working, that is something that they are having good results in this, but it's now something that you can do in a short period of time, that it takes time, it takes people that have to understand very well what they want to do and how to do it. But yeah, if you want to see more detailed companies, maybe the L.M. McCartney Foundation is the best source to do that. Yeah, it's a great suggestion. I know they have kind of a feature on their website where you can kind of see case studies and examples of companies they've worked with. That's a great spot to take a look. Cool, so let's take a look at the results of our third poll here before we jump into our next question. So the poll question was, so what was the most interesting part of today's session for you to look like the majority, half of you said that you're just expanding your knowledge of circular supply chains and circular economies. That's awesome to see. I don't know, Edgar, if you have any thoughts on the poll results here. Awesome, that was the main learning objective, talking in academic terms. So I'm very happy that you guys expand your knowledge in circular supply chains. Now you know what it is. Now you know the importance of this and you know where the difference stakeholder details people, families, companies, governments that are working in this area. That's awesome. What is the second one? Understanding the impact of circularity in supply chain performance and sustainability. Of course, that is something that I want to do. I want to touch our planet and environment. And the third maybe is learning about the different concepts in these areas such as supply chains and reverse logistics. Of course, and we know how all those are related. And then we have, and the last one we have learning about collection and recycling for plastics and learning more about resourceful plastics. So I would say that it's a lot of opportunities and things to do, that's great. Yeah, thank you everyone for participating in our poll. We appreciate the feedback. So if I have time for maybe one or two more questions here. And here's actually a very interesting question that I want to bring in here from Elias Vetter. And his question is kind of about the concept of ranking the R strategies or ranking those loops. You think about the Ellen MacArthur butterfly model and there's the loops and some of them are small and they kind of expand outward. So the question is, how do researchers or how do companies think about ranking like reusability versus recyclability and ranking these different strategies? That's awesome. So I will say, I will start for the last one that we desire as I say, if I am a company if I'm trying to figure out the last one I will do is to do recycling but at the same time is the more use it. And why? Because that requires a lot of, you know, work in all the recycling process that I have to do but it's the more efficient as well because with the recycling and recovering everything as far as I can and I mean creating volume. In terms of, let's say, product, the acceptable is that I can reuse it. They can, they can easily reuse for anyone. No, no, you can reuse, let's say as a book in a library. So you have the book, you can read it and then another person can read it next day. You don't have to do a lot with the book you just put it there again. So if you have that playoff you want to collect a lot if I want to recover the material, definitely. And I think that will be for many more years we have to go over the recycling and that's why it's very important and I want to highlight this. And then this is what we can create volume and we want a little circle without the reuse. And obviously we can go over refurbish to do all the maintenance. That's also something that we can do a state of, for example, if I have my fridge so the state of have a new one, maybe I can repeat it and try to have to buy a new one or create a new one over that. But these are the two strengths are very good question and it depends on all the tradeoff and time, resources and volume. Great question. Yeah, it's a fascinating question. I know lots of researchers are trying to grapple with those challenges and the different tradeoffs between the different strategies. Awesome, so I think we have maybe time for one more question, like one minute answer kind of question and maybe tying a little bit of the concept of our supply chain dynamics course and we're going to start shifting into like the global supply chain perspective. And so this is a question from Alejandro Barrios. And his question is, how do businesses, companies, there's many multinational companies that are international so their supply chains are global. So how do companies think about this on a global perspective? If you think about like a reasonable package between a store and a company's warehouse maybe that's kind of a small scale but how about that global scale? How can companies think about that global scale? Nice, nice question. Well, definitely we know if we start thinking in terms of resources and the scarcity of resource, we know for sure there are some part of the world that maybe they can have more resources than others. So with that, there are, as I talked in the webinar, there's a lot of probably academia and researchers and mostly also governments that are seeing how to relocate resources. So if you relocate resources that is their global you can create efficiencies. And obviously this is a supply chain network design challenge. There's something that we love to do and definitely that needs a lot of system thinking and all of analytics. You have to identify where those resources are, to identify where is the waste, you need to identify how to transport that waste and how to transport that waste and create value over that waste. So it's a creation between value and waste and where they are located. That is the supply chain ring. So I think that's a great note to end on. So I wanna thank you Edgar for your insightful presentation and answering all these questions. I know we have many more questions and we have time for it today. And we'll be sure to share those with you. But such a fascinating topic, tremendous opportunities for those who are studying supply chain. I want to build more resilient, sustainable supply chains. So one final reminder for those of you who are in SE3X, tomorrow is the deadline to register for that verified certificate. So please make sure you do so if you're thinking about doing so. And with that, I wanna thank you again Edgar for sharing your time and your knowledge. And thank you everyone for participating in the chat and our polls and all those great questions in the Q&A. And so goodbye everyone. Thank you, Gelen. Thank you everyone. That was awesome. Thank you.