The Commercial benefits: Using recyclates in Washing Machines by V-ZUG
How do you identify and act on the biggest levers in your environmental footprint?
In this episode, Marcel Niederberger, Head of Sustainability, and Marc Vetterli, Sustainability Expert in Engineering, explain how V-ZUG used life cycle assessment to discover that material intensity (and not just energy efficiency) drives environmental impact in home appliances.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- Why it is essential to carry on life-cycle assessments of all products.
- The development process behind high-quality recycled ABS for visible white panels in washing machines and dryers, and its scalability.
- V-ZUG’s self-imposed CO2 penalty that funds fundamental research and early-stage circular projects.
The episode also explores practical implementation topics, including closing material loops with suppliers, designing for reuse across product generations, and building competitive advantage.
This episode concludes the “Recycled Plastics for Premium Brands” series, sponsored by HolyPoly.
The series focused on the practicalities of using technical recyclates in long-lasting, high quality products.
Video Impression
People
Marcel Niederberger, Head of Sustainability at V-Zug
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-niederberger-18a588105/
Marc Vetterli, Sustainability Expert Engineering at V-Zug
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-vetterli-96456b17a/
Patrick Hypscher, Circular Business Strategist, PaaS Expert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypscher/
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
03:26 Reasons for Increasing the Share of Recycled Materials
06:28 V-Zug’s Circularity Approach – R’s Strategies
09:06 Material Loops and Recycled Plastics Deep-dive
23:06 Cost Factors and Supply Chain Considerations
29:32 Product Design
33:26 Funding Projects
35:35 Material Properties
38:57 Circularity – Scaling and Competitive Advantage
About
V-ZUG is a Swiss premium manufacturer of household appliances, specialising in high-end kitchen and laundry equipment designed for long service lives.
V-ZUG collaborates with partners to integrate recycled materials, including selected plastics, into its products while maintaining stringent performance and design standards.
Further Links
Transcript
[00:00:00] Introduction
There are two main levers where you can reduce your environmental footprint. One is energy consumption; of course, energy efficiency is the solution here. The second aspect is material intensity, and circular economy is the answer there. So basically, the materials that you put into an appliance are even more important than just energy efficiency.
The whole industry in the past was looking at increasing energy efficiency. You see that on the label; it’s very important for consumers to make a purchase decision. But it’s just one aspect of the environmental footprint. As soon as you look into it in a holistic way, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is the method to do so. You see where your levers are, and then you come to the materials and the recycled content.
My name is Patrick Hypscher and this is Circularity FM, the podcast about understanding, building, and managing circular business models. Welcome back to our fourth and final episode in the series on recycled plastics for premium brands. In the last episode, we learned from Bosch how they organized technical feasibility and desirability from the customer.
Today we want to talk about how to scale that to your regular product portfolio. But before we start, I have an offer for you: if you want to get the actual one-pager about this conversation, please sign up for the Circularity.fm newsletter at www.circularity.fm. Our first guest studied electrical engineering and holds an executive MBA.
He has held leadership positions in product management, sales, and marketing. Eleven years ago, he joined V-ZUG. For more than five years already, he has served as Head of Sustainability. Welcome, Marcel Niederberger.
Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Thank you, Patrick.
My second guest has degrees in materials science and chemical engineering. He earned a PhD in mechanical and process engineering from ETH Zurich. He worked as a research and development engineer, project manager, and circular engineer. Three years ago, he joined V-ZUG as a sustainability expert in engineering. Welcome, Marc Vetterli.
Thank you, Patrick. Glad to be here as well.
Marc, we want to talk about home appliances. Before we do that from a professional point of view, what’s the most important feature of a washing machine for you personally?
The most important feature, if you look into digitalization, is that I really love the push message at the end of a cycle. It tells me on the upper floor that I need to go down to the cellar to remove the clothes.
That wasn’t there in the past, so I had to walk down several times. I’m very happy about digitalization in this regard.
Every IoT product manager now feels so happy about your answer. Marc, what about you?
Being able to put 8 kilos of laundry in and get it clean after one to two hours. It’s pretty convenient.
[00:03:26] Reasons for Increasing the Share of Recycled Materials
Couldn’t agree more, with a family of two kids. Let’s switch to the commercial and design aspects and the circular perspective of washing machines. Our focus here is on recycled plastics and durable products. What was the starting point, Marcel, when looking at the recycled material share of a typical V-ZUG machine?
Frankly speaking, in the past, there was not a big focus on recycled materials, especially plastics.
You find some recycled content in other materials like metals, but it was never really a strategic approach to have recycled material incorporated into our products. If you opened a product three years ago, you wouldn’t find a lot of recycled materials in it. The starting point was very initial.
Okay. And what was the reason to change that?
It all started when we looked into life cycle analysis. Two or three years ago, we decided to measure the ecological footprint of all the appliances we have in the market. We did structured LCAs for all of our products, and all of a sudden you see two main levers to reduce your environmental footprint. One is energy consumption—energy efficiency is the solution there.
The second aspect is material intensity, and circular economy is the answer. Basically, the materials that you put into an appliance are even more important than just energy efficiency. The whole industry was looking at increasing energy efficiency.
You see that on the label; it’s important for consumers, but it’s just one aspect of the environmental footprint. As soon as you look at it holistically through LCA, you see where your levers are. Then you come to materials and recycled content—and not just recycled content at the beginning;
it’s looking at the whole life cycle. The kind of material you place into it and what happens at the end of life all matter very much.
What was the motivation or vision behind looking into that topic?
Overall, it’s about the targets we gave ourselves.
For example, we have an ambitious CO2 emission target on Scope 3, and “purchased goods and services” is an important category. If you want to reduce these emissions over time, you need to touch the materials that go into an appliance. In 2021, we signed our long-term targets for Scope 3 and since then we have used a structured approach to reduce our overall environmental footprint year by year.
[00:06:28] V-Zug’s Circularity Approach – R’s Strategies
Do you have a more holistic vision for circularity beyond Scope 3 reduction?
Yes, circularity doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why we defined a vision we call “Closing the Circle 2040.” 2040 indicates that this takes time because we need to touch many things in the system.
It’s a holistic approach that looks at the whole value chain. In the past, we were happy with just a good recycling process, but we believe circular economy is much more than just recycling. We have started to take back our appliances at the end of life. At the beginning, we look to see if they are able to be refurbished for a second life.
If that’s not possible, we dismantle them down to every single item and start to close the circle as narrowly as possible. We define “Reuse”—taking a part out and using it again. That would be the ideal case, though it’s not always possible.
The second layer would be “Recircle,” as we call it. That means keeping the resources in a closed loop, ideally with our suppliers. You talk with your suppliers about what happens at the end of life.
Recycling remains an important aspect, and “Repurposing” is another approach where we give a new meaning to a part. For example, a washing machine drum can end up as a fantastic design piece, like a table.
That’s a fun aspect, but it’s also one of the R-strategies we drive.
That sounds super impressive. I feel like you touch a lot of the R-strategies in the hierarchy. Let’s zoom in on the material loop and focus on recycled plastics.
[00:09:06] Material Loops and Recycled Plastics Deep-dive
Marc, maybe let’s start with the end: what has been the result of your efforts over the last few years, and how will this be visible in the products you bring to market?
We’ve been working closely with HolyPoly, the startup, to develop an ABS compound made out of 50 to 70% PCR (Post-Consumer Recycled) ABS.
With the help of HolyPoly, we built a material that is actually a white regranulate that fulfills our aesthetic specifications. That was a high target—having a pretty white recycled material. This is exactly what the team at HolyPoly was able to achieve: a quality that is unmatched on the market right now.
We had the chance to collaborate and make sure that something that seemed impossible became possible. Today, visible front panels—those extremely white plastic parts—usually get shredded and burnt or landfilled. Now we have a way of reusing them in the highest quality possible.
That is what Marcel meant by “Recircling”—closing the loop on the highest quality possible with our partners. That was thanks to the collaboration with HolyPoly and is an extremely good example of how circular economy leads to a lower environmental impact.
Is this already live?
We already have a few thousand dryers with these front panels on the market; they’ve been sold this year. As of February next year, we will incorporate it into the current core of our multi-household washing machines. We are looking at four more parts where we could do the swap between the current ABS version and the new recyclate we’ve been developing with HolyPoly.
There are many parts in a washing machine. Why did you choose that one?
Really good question. Usually, when people talk about PCR plastics, they say you can do it, but it will be black or gray with lots of impurities. By starting with the most complex one—getting a pure white—we set a challenge.
By showing that a white recycled plastic is feasible for visible parts for a Swiss household appliance manufacturer, it shows that the rest should be feasible as well.
Just to be clear, the main challenge is the purity of the white and the visibility?
Exactly. ABS itself is a thermoplastic polymer and is pretty easy to melt and shape again. But being able to get material from appliances discarded at collection points (Wertstoffhöfe) throughout Germany, Poland, or the Czech Republic is another issue. You have to separate the ABS from PP, from black ABS, and from metallic parts.
Being able to have only one single type of material and color is where the challenge starts. Developing a process that enables a perfectly white, non-yellowish PCR material—which HolyPoly achieved—is making the “impossible” possible.
For companies listening who want to start, what did your process look like?
We were approached by HolyPoly. They had their PCR and had done some pre-trials. They showed us the values: the Lab color values, thermal, mechanical, rheological, and chemical properties. We compared that to our current materials, like ASA or ABS.
We decided that what we wanted to develop needed to match the aesthetic performance for visible parts, as well as the processability and UV stability of the ASA we currently use. Through deep lab work and DOE (Design of Experiments), HolyPoly optimized the composition of the compounds.
They optimized the mix because we have the PCR stream, two types of virgin ABS to help with processing and mechanical properties, as well as the quantity of masterbatch to balance costs and results.
Where is the input material coming from—end-of-life appliances across Europe or just your own products?
For the project, it started in Germany. The team at HolyPoly went to different “Wertstoffhöfe” (waste collection centers)
and discussed with the first handlers of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) to get the first batch. To lower costs and match the virgin price, they expanded to Poland and the Czech Republic because they have a lot of plastic manufacturing and recycling.
Ultimately, as Marcel said, the idea is to bring our own streams of white ABS material from our dismantling facility back to HolyPoly so it can be incorporated into the compounding.
So you ensure a closed loop for your own materials and add material through an open loop to match volume requirements?
Exactly. We are ramping up and building a dismantling line, but we are talking about a few thousand machines compared to the tons of material we need for production. We need a system to bridge the gap.
A question from an outsider: Why do we have to ensure it’s purely white? Why don’t manufacturers accept certain imperfections?
That’s a brilliant question that we want to raise internally as well.
Within the sustainability team, we have one voice, but you also have consumer preferences. The company brave enough to change that will open up new opportunities for recycled materials. For now, we remain with white.
I would like to work for the company that starts to change that because then you reduce the footprint and cost even further. We invite all other “white goods” companies to do that because we all need to make progress as a society. We need to challenge the status quo.
If I may add—we’ve been discussing this for years. Showing that the “impossible” was possible makes it easier to eventually remove requirements. By talking to each stakeholder and customer, we can gently show what is feasible.
Lowering specifications is actually welcome because it lowers the price and improves sustainability—we would use less virgin material and masterbatch. On the point of sale, if someone sees a yellow machine next to a bright white one, they might think the yellow one is lower quality. We need to change the conversation about what quality means when combined with sustainability.
Based on what you said, Marc, if you relaxed those requirements, you could achieve higher degrees of recycled content?
Exactly. We could go up to 90-95% PCR with just a bit of masterbatch. But if we want to close material loops over many life cycles, I advocate for 70 to 80% PCR.
Adding some new virgin material keeps the properties constant. Otherwise, after a few cycles, you have a significant decrease in material properties. By adding new materials regularly, you can keep your material stock much longer.
That’s a valid perspective. If fibers degrade after several cycles, you’d need virgin material anyway.
Exactly. To smooth down the decay and keep functionality high, adding some new material is a good way to keep the value high. Also, to put 100% PCR in all appliances, we would have needed to accumulate 1,000 tons of material already, which we are still building up.
[00:23:06] Cost Factors and Supply Chain Considerations
Let’s look at costs. What factors make this commercially viable?
At the start, the virgin material had low costs, and the goal was to get the regranulate price as close as possible.
After the investigation, we arrived at a price that was about 50 cents per kilo higher than virgin material. However, due to taxes and tariffs, the price of virgin material increased, and now we have a delta of only about 15 cents per kilo.
This is good information because sourcing in Europe means you aren’t impacted by those tariffs. It helps to close material loops regionally. At the same time, we haven’t yet contributed our own stream to HolyPoly’s formulation.
Lowering the cost of our own dismantling and regrind preparation will have a positive impact on cost, especially since our own stream is even whiter than the PCR they have been gathering.
We might be able to reduce the masterbatch, reducing the price while increasing the PCR portion. We want a resilient, regional supply chain. Of course, the more you produce, the more efficient the processing becomes. We’ve been talking to other companies to increase the volume of material processed.
Many people since the information at the K-Fair (K-Messe) a few weeks ago have been contacting HolyPoly and that might also come in handy in order to increase the volume of material processed and produced.
One aspect of price is cost; the other is what you can achieve on the market. Do you communicate this recycled content share, or does it go in silently?
No. We think the best way is to do good and talk about it. We are trying to proactively show that we care. We want to make new appliances out of old appliances, and we don’t want to just make an “Eco-line.”
We want all of our appliances to have a lower carbon footprint; otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. Having something fancy that no one buys would be greenwashing. We want to make it the new standard.
We have a few parts labeled “100% recycled,” but for the white panels, we won’t label them specifically because sustainability should be clean and straightforward. In the future, we want to change the storytelling from just energy efficiency to material innovation.
We involve marketing in how to tell that story, but we always want to deliver first and talk about it afterward. This is a bit the approach that we have.
[00:29:32] Product Design
How did the learnings from this specific project influence other aspects of circularity?
We want to approach this holistically. That’s why we introduced the “10 Principles of Circular Design.” We need to make sure the products we design today are ready for the circular economy.
This changes aspects of design. You have to argue why you are using a specific material and how it can be used after its end of life.
If you dismantle a washing machine, you have 80 different parts. You have to ask this question for every part. Metals are already “done,” plastics are next, but electronics (PCBs) are still a huge challenge.
Does this influence product design specifically?
Patrick, let me give you an example of “Reuse.” One principle is to look at the old platform before starting a new one. A washing machine has counterbalances that last 100 years.
If we develop the next platform, we make sure the counterbalance design doesn’t change. This way, when we get old machines back in 15 years, we can take those weights and reuse them directly in the new appliance.
If you don’t design that in, engineers will design a new shape for the same functionality, and you lose that stream. It’s a strategic decision to become your own material stream. In Europe, we don’t have many raw materials in the ground, but we have them in the products around us.
[00:33:26] Funding Projects
Every new project needs investment. How do you get internal funding?
A simple answer: We are lucky. Back in 2018, V-ZUG gave itself a CO2 penalty.
For all direct emissions (Scope 1 and 2) that V-ZUG still has, we “punish” ourselves. We put money aside every year to fund projects that are ecologically wise but economically challenging.
Usually, a CEO might say a project has no business case, but because we use a “Triple Bottom Line” approach (People, Planet, Profit), the CO2 fund enables early-stage projects. Of course, it eventually needs to be profitable.
Marc has done a project for the past two years called “Circular Materials.” Maybe Marc can elaborate on that.
[00:35:35] Material Properties
After finishing the LCAs in 2023, we saw a broad material portfolio, especially in plastics. The idea was to minimize the number of different materials used while keeping functionality and costs in control.
We used the CO2 fund to screen every plastic part and investigate how properties change between the virgin state and after 15 years of use. We looked at 12 plastics.
At V-ZUG, we have decades of experience with metals, and we know that lower variation in material makes handling complexity easier. For plastics, we worked with the FHNW (Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz) with Professor Marcus Gehring and the OST (Ostschweizer Fachhochschule) in Rapperswil to investigate mechanical and thermal properties.
We developed a simulation database to understand the decrease in material properties. The results were interesting: for polypropylenes, there are very few differences even after 15 years. For the polyamides, it’s a different story. But for polypropylenes, using 70 to 80% PCR is a “no-brainer.”
[00:38:57] Circularity – Scaling and Competitive Advantage
So it’s funding for fundamental research and applied projects that aren’t profitable yet but pay into your vision. Exactly. It ensures we understand the technical value of the materials inside our appliances.
If you can show that there isn’t much loss in properties, you can save a lot of material. This funding mechanism sounds like a circular competitive advantage. Does it pay off? We always discuss that up front.
For example, we made a project with Outokumpu for circular “green steel” with 10 times less CO2 intensity. We love being early adopters. It costs more at the beginning, but you need first customers to scale it up.
We aim for transparency so that by year two or three, the price comes down to a competitive dimension. We also decarbonized our truck fleet; the first trucks were three times more expensive than diesel, but four years later, we are almost at the same level.
It gives us a competitive advantage because we start earlier, but it’s always based on the belief that it’s the right investment for the future.
Wonderful. In doing so, you pave the way and show things are possible. Thanks, Marc and Marcel. You’re welcome. Thank you very much for having us. Thank you, Patrick.
This marked the last episode in our series on recycled plastics for premium brands. Thanks to HolyPoly for sponsoring this series. You can find the actionable one-pagers at www.circularity.fm. Let’s drive a profitable circular economy. Don’t forget: the most abundant renewable resource is your imagination. My name is Patrick Hypscher and this is Circularity FM.