This article is authored by Jenelle Shapiro, Sustainability and Circularity Leader, Trane Technologies.
Every year, the world throws away over 2 billion tons of waste. That number is expected to increase to 3.4 billion tons by 2050. This has far-reaching consequences: wasted resources, lost business value, increased emissions and polluted ecosystems.
Recycling helps, of course, but it cannot solve such a massive issue. To truly address the scale of these challenges, we need to rethink how products and materials are designed, used, maintained and recovered. We need circularity.
Rather than just asking if something can be recycled, circular thinking asks a different question: Can this product and its materials retain its value after use? Circularity focuses on reimagining the lifecycle of equipment and their materials to preserve their value for as long as possible. By reframing our approach to design, product utilization and the recovery of valuable resources and materials, we can capture and preserve their inherent value.
What is circularity?
To understand circularity, it helps to first understand its opposite: the traditional linear model. In a linear economy, materials are extracted, manufactured into products, used and then discarded. This model drives enormous waste, lost business value and depletion of finite resources.
Many people assume that recycling solves the waste problem. But in practice, much of today’s recycling is actually downcycling, where high-quality materials are transformed into lower-value products. Each cycle gradually reduces the material’s usefulness until it ultimately ends up in a landfill.
Circularity offers a different framework: Instead of extracting, using and discarding resources, a circular economy maximizes the value of materials through improved design, extending useful life and integrating thoughtful recovery into product lifecycles. This model isn’t just about diverting waste from landfills. It’s about optimizing the materials across the full product lifecycle to design systems that keep resources in use longer and increase economic value while reducing environmental impact. By designing systems that keep resources in use longer, companies can increase economic returns while reducing environmental impact.
Designing for circularity across the value chain
Up to 80% of a product or material’s environmental impact is determined at the design stage. As an original equipment manufacturer, we work to ensure that our designs incorporate circular approaches.
A circular design strategy consists of three distinct areas of focus:
- The first priority is the design itself: by designing our products to ensure they’re durable, repairable and remanufacturable, we add business value and reduce waste. Design choices like these lower total emissions while extending the product lifecycle.
- The second is materials: how can we ensure our products rely less on virgin materials? How can we use higher recycled content or renewable inputs? How do our material choices support durability and value for our customers?
- The final category is services. Designing products to take advantage of circular services like maintenance, repair, remanufacturing and R’newal to support longer useful life for valuable equipment, creating sustainable ROI for our customers.
To ensure our products integrate the appropriate low-carbon materials, strong collaboration across the supply chain is necessary. Reverse logistics, recovery infrastructure and alignment with suppliers and customers all play a role in maximizing the useful life and recovery of high-value materials and components while ensuring resilience long-term.
Extending useful life through remanufacture and repair
Our maintenance and overhaul processes are key components of our circularity strategy. For example, our remanufacturing process takes core components of a chiller such as a compressor, motor or electronics, disassembles it to the bolt level, then cleans, repairs and reassembles it.
Remanufacturing processes like this extend the useful life of high-value equipment, offering our customers the same performance at a lower cost, while also reducing environmental footprint. To keep our products in use longer, we also reuse and remanufacture key components of our equipment, for example our reconditioned refrigerated transport units.
Another approach is our equipment buy-back program. If a customer is ready to upgrade an asset, we can, in some cases, refurbish that asset and then reintroduce it via rental or other channels — maximizing both the value and the useful life of systems and equipment while reducing emissions.
“Circularity isn’t just about diverting waste — it’s about preserving the value of products and materials, so we don’t have to continue extracting and wasting resources.”
Jenelle Shapiro
Sustainability and Circularity Leader, Trane Technologies
A circular end of life
The final step in the circular system is the end-of-life for a product or material. We’re working to maximize the value captured at that stage through supply chain and recycling relationships. It starts with our manufacturing facilities, where we receive many packaged goods and materials. Through collaboration with our suppliers, we’re creating solutions for redesigned packaging that allow us to re-leverage it or send it back for reuse through reverse logistics channels.
In addition, during the manufacturing process, we generate scrap and byproducts related to the machining and punching operations. Our procurement teams are redirecting that scrap back to our suppliers, which increases our supply chain resiliency for critical raw materials. And in some markets, we work with recycling companies to disassemble systems and recover reusable parts, while providing customers credit for returning cores to ensure that we’re maximizing the value and useful life of every asset.
The future of circularity and sustainable business
Ultimately, circularity is both an environmental imperative and a systemic approach to how we design products and operate our business. Scaling it will require continued technological advancement and investment. Fortunately, the innovations we need are gaining momentum, from AI-driven predictive maintenance and digital technology to optimize performance, to automated disassembly to dismantle assets for recovery.
At Trane Technologies, our circularity practices help us on our path to achieving goals like the Trane Technologies 2030 sustainability commitments and our Gigaton Challenge. As we transition to a more circular economy, we strengthen supply chain resilience and reduce exposure to price volatility while minimizing waste and reliance on virgin materials. This approach unlocking new avenues for innovation, efficiency and long-term value creation – making circularity a circular strategy for a more resilient and sustainable business future.
Rebuilding The Future: The New Circularity Blueprint
Listen to the Healthy Spaces podcast to hear a new circularity definition, transforming how we think about product lifecycles even in the built environment.
Learn more about climate innovation on this Healthy Spaces Podcast episode.
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