Reverse logistics for postal services within a circular economy

• Date: 01 September 2018
• Author: Khaled Soufani,Terence Tse,Mark Esposito
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.21904

COMPANIES IN THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Reverse logistics for postal services within a circular economy

Mark Esposito

1,2

| Terence Tse

3

| Khaled Soufani

4

1

Division of Continuing Education, Harvard

University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

2

Grenoble Ecole de Management, Grenoble,

France

3

ESCP Europe Business School, London, UK

4

Judge Business School, University of

Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Correspondence

Mark Esposito, Division of Continuing

Education, Harvard University, 51 Brattle

Street, 02138 Cambridge, MA, USA.

Email: markesposito@fas.harvard.edu

A circular economy will need a society-level recovery system that takes all parts into account.

One of the most serious challenges of operating a circular economy is reverse logistics, a major

component of how the circular economy functions. The question of how to manage the recov-

ery of waste—which might include such disparate items as working mobile phones, package

waste, and inkjet cartridges—from billions of homes and consumers and get them back into the

global materials pool so that the residual value of waste is captured and returned to being a

resource is to be addressed if the circular economy is to move from theory to practice. Just

some of the many needs of reverse logistics include asset tracking, materials recovery, disman-

tling, and toxic waste handling. Complexity of details necessitate that the design of reverse

logistics and management of the circular economy will be some of the most highly refined sys-

tems thinking that modern society will ever create.

KEYWORDS

circular economy, logistics

1|INTRODUCTION

Though governments and research institutions are taking greater con-

siderations than ever of the regenerative prospects of the circular

economy, efficient solutions are still in need. A perfunctory look at

the numbers shows some unsustainable and troubling math. It has

been estimated that growing global consumer demands will require

the natural resources of two Earths by the year 2030 (Forum for the

Future and Retail Industry Leaders Association, 2016). Creating a cir-

cular economy that can meet those demands in the face of resource

scarcity requires more than creating products from recycled plastic or

building sustainable homes and offices. A circular economy will need a

society-level recovery system that takes all parts into account. One of

the most serious challenges of operating a circular economy is reverse

logistics, a major component of how the circular economy functions.

The question of how to manage the recovery of waste—which might

include such disparate items as workingmobile phones, package waste,

and inkjet cartridges—from billions of homes and consumers and get

them back into the global materials pool so that the residual value of

waste is capturedand returned to being a resource is to be addressed if

the circular economy is to move from theory to practice. Just some of

the many needs of reverse logistics include asset tracking, materials

recovery, dismantling, and toxic waste handling. The complexity of the

details necessitates that the design of reverse logistics and

management of the circular economy will be some of the most highly

refined systemsthinking that modern society will evercreate.

Today, many recyclable items already have reverse logistics imple-

mented efficiently through municipal waste collection systems, which

have partnerships with recycling plants and companies. Recyclable

resources already addressed in waste management include glass, card-

board, office paper, and common plastics such as polyethylene and

polypropylene, but the recovery of small electronics, appliances, and

clothing still remains a challenge. For these types of products and

items, we investigated prescriptive, inductive models for the purpose

of solving these particular challenges in managing the circular econ-

omy. This article explores the applicability and feasibility of integrating

national postal networks into reverse logistics to help a circular econ-

omy function optimally. National postal services are forces to be reck-

oned with. For instance, in the United States, approximately

465 million pieces of mail are mailed every day (United States Postal

Service, 2010). The circular economy promises to be a transformative

state; to get there, society’s agents must think and move beyond

incremental innovation. Though incremental innovation has its own

merits and values, reframing the purpose of a national postal service’s

distribution infrastructure is a more systems approach toward

enabling the circular economy.

Alongside the viewpoint that postal service networks could be

optimized for the circular economy, the other reason why national

DOI: 10.1002/tie.21904

Thunderbird Int Bus Rev. 2018;60:741–745. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 741