Rental and Repair business models come with the promise of superior circularity. However, it is unclear if a specific company can deliver on this promise.
In this episode, Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Circularity, presents insights from the first market report of UNDRESS Circularity.
UNDRESS Circularity provides a framework and practical guide to determine the impact of rental and repair business models. It is a collaborative industry project led by Circularity in collaboration with Fraunhofer IZM, Systemiq, and 12 industry partners (Assurant, circulee, Everphone, fixfirst, Foxway, Grover, Ingram Micro, rebuy, Recommerce Group, Reverse Logistics Group, Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone), further supported by Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt and Deloitte.
This episode is the eleventh in the series PaaS Decoded, 16 conversations about the fine details of product-as-a-service.
Video Impression
People
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Circularity.
Patrick Hypscher, Co-Founder of Green PO, Expert in Sustainable Business Models
Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:23 The Motivation To Rent & Repair
03:39 Does renting increase lifetime and utilisation rate?
05:46 Shareholders and Stakeholders demand clarity about environmental impact
08:49 A consortium of Telcos, Renting & Repair Providers, Producers & Recyclers
10:39 Market and Company data as a basis for a framework
12:45 Rental uptake among German private users is at 1%
13:52 Desire to own and commercial attractiveness as barriers
15:22 Renting is more common in the B2B market
19:43 A company with a sustainability strategy is more likely to rent and repair
23:00 Unveiling the actual lifetime of a device
27:41 A basis for rental providers to compete on impact
28:27 The full report available as of Q1 2025
29:10 Suitable product and relevant customer needs are decisive
30:09 Further uptake of rental, impact measurement and data collection expected
About Circularity:
Circularity is a do-tank that supports executives and senior professionals in business and society with circular transformation – through collaboration, consulting, training, networking and much more.
Further Links:
Undress Project https://www.circularity.me/undress/
Undress Market Report https://www.circularity.me/undress-circularity-from-consumer-insight-to-circular-impact-market-report/
Transcript
[00:00:00] Intro
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: UNDRESS Circularity is a collaborative industry project to develop a methodology and a step by step guidance for practitioners to measure the impact of circular business models and in particular rental and secondhand with a focus on the use phase.
Patrick Hypscher: Welcome to the 11th episode of PaaS Decoded. 16 conversations about the fine details of Product as a Service. In the last episode, Jonas Bulach shared how V-Zug handles reporting and accounting of their Product as a Service. In today’s episode, we discuss the factors that influence the environmental impact of Product as a Service.
Patrick Hypscher: She holds degrees in International Business Administration and Management, Organizations, and Governance. She worked for IBM on smart cities, organized seven day mobile tech hackathons in various African countries, and worked as Senior Consultant for McKinsey Company. As head of sustainability, she built up the sustainability team at Grover.
She has a PhD from ETH Zurich, focusing on innovation strategies for the circular economy. In 2018, she co founded Circularity, a do tank and professional network To promote the circular economy and actively work on the circular transition with practitioners across industries. Welcome Marianne.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Thank you, Patrick. I’m happy to be here.
Patrick Hypscher: Marianne, what is the last refurbished or second hand product you personally bought?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: The last refurbished product. I think that was my laptop.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay, why, what was your motivation?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Well, I think it’s all about really also having a personal experience with what I’m preaching, right? So of course I try renting products. I try purchasing secondhand products. And immerse myself in the circular business world.
[00:02:23] The Motivation To Rent & Repair
Patrick Hypscher: Nice. So you walked a talk and many people buy secondhand or rent also because of the presumed positive impact on the environment. And also the companies claim that their secondhand or renting offerings would use resource needs. Has this hypothesis ever been validated.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Well, intuitively it is it is better for the environment to buy secondhand or to rent rather than buy. And that is what everybody says in every talk about circular business models. And if I didn’t believe that, that, that the likelihood is on the right side, and there is a high potential for a positive impact, I wouldn’t be working on this field.
However, I’m also a fact based person, right? And I don’t like normative discussions or, like, basing my decisions just on intuition. I like numbers. I like proof. So we really have to work on quantifying that impact, also to make sure that we can choose what has the highest potential impact. And astonishingly, there’s quite Little proof yet.
That doesn’t mean that there is no impact, but just that we have to work more on getting proof.
[00:03:39] Does renting increase lifetime and utilisation rate?
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. And at what directions do we need to look in order to prove that or what, what are the factors we need to consider there?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: So, I’m, I, there’s a lot of work being done currently, and that has already been done, on quantifying the impact of circular approaches, right? And that is really, really cool work. There’s more and more product carbon footprints, for example, or or general analysis of the carbon emissions associated with logistics, with repair, with refurbishment, with spare parts and all of that.
It is fantastic work and we need more of that, right? And so on, based on the actual emissions from the production processes, all from everything associated with the direct handling of products, we have, we have made very, very significant steps.
What is missing is that we also analyze whether all these efforts that we are making actually contribute to a longer lifetime of a product, whether that actually changes how we use the products, because that’s That is still a black box, but this is really crucial to analyze the impact of circular business models.
Patrick Hypscher: And is that in particular any challenging that explains why this part is missing?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: I think this has a lot to do with the, with the intuition that we’ve been talking about, right? So intuitively it is better to use a second hand device, right? If I’m done using it and then I give it to you and you keep using it, this sounds like a, like a no brainer, right? So people particularly don’t question and that, that impact logic and that impact hypothesis. And then there’s just like very, very little data about this and various, very few studies that have looked at this at all. So there’s little awareness about the questions that we are still in need to answer.
Patrick Hypscher: So, and I guess this is the reason to start the project of UNDRESS Circularity, right? Mhm.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:05:46] Shareholders and Stakeholders demand clarity about environmental impact
Patrick Hypscher: So first, what is Undress about? And second how did you come up with the name?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: So UNDRESS circularity is an as a collaborative industry project where we seek to fill that gap and provide that missing puzzle piece to the whole work on impact assessment, to provide a robust quantitative base for impact assessment and the, and, and just to make it also clear how it, how it adds to, to what is being done.
There’s a lot of work, as I said, on impact assessment, and that focuses largely on the product carbon footprint or on the direct emissions, right? And we don’t see to replicate that. And we don’t work on that. Actually, we just look at the use phase. We just like, we like to understand is secondhand prolonging the use of a product over its entire lifespan, or is it more intensively used and how can we build a methodology around that to factor these, these this, this use space look into the overall impact quantification.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. And the name?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: I didn’t come up with a name actually. Right. So UNDRESS was born out of CiCel, which is our collaborative industry project for circular consumer electronics. Last year we held a, we held a workshop with 50 industry practitioners, which we brought together to talk about one of the key challenges that need to be tackled to really advance a transition toward a circular industry and what is needed to tackle them.
And then Grover raised this, this question of impact measurement for rental models and said that they really want to measure the impact of rental models, but there is no methodology out there to do so. And that is really a problem for them because they have impact investors that I, that really want to have numbers and also the the customers and the business partners, they all wanted to know what are they saving when they rent our products and then Grover about develop their own methodology, but it just was, it was a question of how, how trustworthy is it to say, well, this is based on our own methodology.
So they said, don’t you all don’t, don’t others have this question? as well, this need, and wouldn’t it be better to develop a joint methodology that makes also the different impacts comparable across players in the sector. So we founded a working group because immediately there were 10 people saying, yes, we should really work on this.
And then we asked the group. So what’s how, how should we call this? And then somebody said, well, it’s really about like going beyond this, this hype and beyond this intuition and just saying, yeah, this is better, but actually getting to the, to the, to the core of it. So it’s about undressing circularity, really.
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Well we tried several times to change the name, but. Stuck.
[00:08:49] A consortium of Telcos, Renting & Repair Providers, Producers & Recyclers
Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Yeah. Sticky name. What kind of partners are ultimately part of the consortium to make it also trustworthy?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Yeah. So so as I said, it all developed from this, from this workshop last year and all of the partners who were back in that little workshop actually are now part of the, part of the project. So it’s 12 industry partners that are involved in secondhand and rental and repair or in general service provision in the sector.
Right. So it’s. Big like it providers such as Telekom or Vodafone, it’s rental companies such as Grover or everphone. It’s re it’s secondhand companies such as Rebuy or Circulee and eh, repair services such as eh, Ingram or Fox Way, or also who do a lot of them more of like about their whole circle of business services.
But also reverse logistics group, re commerce and group. So it’s 12 different partners. And then it’s then we have as a core partner as well, Systemiq and Fraunhofer IZM, who are essential for the methodology development.
And then we have some associated partners who are not part of the core group, but they provide advice and feedback to connect it also to the general developments in the sector, such as WWF to provide more the environmental perspective or impact investors, such as circularity capital, also the German standardisation body, because they are very interested in in looking into the standardisation of such measurements.
But also a Circular Electronics Partnership or ETH Zurich.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Okay. So actually, correct me if I’m wrong. UNDRESS is about creating a trusted methodology to assess the Environment impact of rental and repair models with a focus on the use face.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Exactly.
[00:10:39] Market and Company data as a basis for a framework
Patrick Hypscher: So now we have that one clear. As far as I know, there’ve been two phases. Well, there are two phases. The first one was about to understand reality a bit better. And the next one is then to refine the framework itself or develop the framework. that’s the structure of UNDRESS, right?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: So, and we say, so, and so, as I said, as, as you very, very, very well summarize. UNDRESS Circularity is a collaborative industry project to develop a methodology and a step by step guidance for practitioners to measure the impact of circular business models and in particular rental and secondhand with a focus on the use phase.
Right. And for that methodology development, we need data. We need insights into the actual world because we want to have a look at what does the typical use phase look like for such devices. And how would circular business models change that and to understand this, this use phase, we need a theoretical underpinning.
That’s what we’re developing right now. Also with, with Fraunhofer and Systemiq, but we also need data first. We need data from the consumers and the consumer point of view, why they’re using it, what their intentions are, how they use it, et cetera. And then we need the market and the business data.
And in the first part of the project, for the first report, we have been doing a market report where we ask consumers in B2B market in Germany on electronic users. This is what we just published.
In the second part, we look at industry data. So we looked at the proprietary data from our industry partners, and we look at data available on the market. We do expert interviews and all of that to look more on from, from an industry perspective. On the use phase of those people who are trading devices, who are bringing them into the market, who are repairing them, who are providing them further, who are brokering them across the world to really gather this industry perspective of the data and then combine this two data and bring it into the methodology development.
[00:12:45] Rental uptake among German private users is at 1%
Patrick Hypscher: Thanks for, for delivering the complete picture here. It helps to understand also like the, the next steps because I’d like to talk a bit about the findings from these reports.
Let’s look first at the consumers, the private consumers. How popular is secondhand or renting among private customers?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: We’ve, for the first report, we’ve done representative market survey with external professional agencies, both for the B2C and the B2B world.
In the B2C sector we’ve interviewed, well, the agency we work with interviewed over a thousand people representative of the German population.
And we’ve seen that compared also to other studies, the uptake of circular business models is growing. Right now we, we have an indication of about 20% of private users in Germany who are already experienced with acquiring electronic devices secondhand.
In rental, however, it’s still, there’s a lot of talk and there’s a lot of awareness about the topic, but the actual uptake in the market currently is around 1%.
[00:13:52] Desire to own and commercial attractiveness as barriers
Patrick Hypscher: Why is that?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Well, I think well, of course we asked we asked people of why they don’t rent or why don’t buy secondhand. And interestingly the main barriers are the desire to own. More than 50% said they really just wanna own the device and they want to have a new device. So this indicates already also that we still also have quite some mindset shifts to, to, to work on if we want to have an a bigger uptake of circular business models.
For, for rental in particular it’s, it’s really also that the people say that actually they want to access the products for long term use. And they think that if it’s for long term, then rental is not the best option and that it is financially not attractive. But once again, the ownership, the desire to own is the biggest barrier to rent.
Patrick Hypscher: I always challenged that explanation. I came across this pretty frequently. And what I’m observing is that if people who have a desire to own, then the proposition itself is commercially not just attractive enough.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: I completely agree. What I’m saying is that the, what people responded or a question, right? I do believe that, that you are right. And that. With the right service that would actually provide me a bigger, bigger benefit than owning I I think there would be quite a high willingness to switch.
[00:15:22] Renting is more common in the B2B market
Patrick Hypscher: Are there any differences between B2C and B2B when it comes to renting, the uptake and the reasons?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Yeah. So there is, there are big differences between B2B and B2C.
The most striking difference, difference is probably that rental is far more common in B2B markets than in B2C. So while we are 1% in the B2C markets for those electronic products that we had a look on in our study the numbers for B2B are around 11 percent already. So it’s a much higher uptake in, in the sector.
Patrick Hypscher: And 11 percent means that 11 percent of the interviewed companies already have experience with renting electronic devices.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Exactly. They use that’s one of the typical channels to procure electronic devices for their companies.
Patrick Hypscher: And to put it in perspective because like a company uses other devices than a private person. What kind of devices did you look at?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: So in general, in this study, we looked at different electronic devices that either frequently used such as a smartphone or laptop, or that are rather occasionally used to just cameras or gaming consoles, because if for the impact methodology, it’s quite important of whether something is very frequently used, like as my smartphone, because then you cannot intensify the use, right?
I mean, my smartphone is already used as much as it can. I mean, it shouldn’t be used anymore, right? So the only way a circular business model can have an impact for a smartphone is to prolong the life, right? This is not the case for a camera, right? A camera I might use only once a year and the rest of the year it sits idle in my shelf.
So prolonging the life is not the, it’s not the relevant lever to, for, for impact. It’s, it’s rather to bring it back into use and to increase the intensity of use. So here, this would be really better to not own it and don’t use it, but probably only accesses when you use it and then give others the opportunity to use the same device to increase, to intensify the use over the same amount of time, we’ve looked at these four different categories, but of course, in the, in the B2B world gaming consoles don’t play such a big role.
So the numbers were negligible and cameras, we had a, we had a look at them and they were relevant, but of course the main categories in B2B were laptops and smartphones.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. And did you also knowing that UNDRESS Circularity is about electronic devices did you also look into other product types in the B2B, like office furniture or machines you use in the production to get a general idea?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: The short answer is No .But the long answer is important. The, the thing is about about unrestricted clarity. Of course, in the end we provide you Actual data on the electronics sector in Germany, right now with this first market report on the actual uptake and use of circular business models within electronics.
And of course, also with a second report, we provide uptakes of how the industry landscape and how the, how the industry of electronics in Germany and across the world really works. But the main reason why we do UNDRESS is to provide a methodology and to explain and to, to, to advance the work on how, on, on, on methodology development, have a step by step guidance of how do you have to think about what should the model look like when you want to measure the impact of secondhand. With consideration of use phase and not just using some theoretical terms as is typically done and also for, for rental and that methodology. And that’s the core of what we, it’s the whole purpose of what we, why we’re doing the project that is replicable to other industries. Right, so you can use, you can take that and then say, okay, with this logic in mind, with this methodology, let’s look at the textile sector, like let’s look at the furniture sector. Let’s look at the construction sector. Of course the input parameters will change and, and, and the, and, and some levers will be less important or more important, but the logic of how we have to incorporate the look on use phase is the same.
[00:19:43] A company with a sustainability strategy is more likely to rent and repair
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Okay. Got it. And now. After we, we clarified let’s say the, the, the scope of the products so smartphones laptops, cameras, and gaming consoles you said renting is popular among consumers by about 1%, whereas for companies, 11%. Let’s maybe jump back. Why is there such a a difference?
So what makes it more attractive to companies to rent?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Well, I think first of all, what I found very interesting in the B2B sector, which overall is that that the uptake of circular business models and the B2B sector is very much associated with sustainability strategy. And I didn’t, I didn’t expect that to be such a strong signal, right? But we asked companies like whether they have a sustainability strategy and whether that influences their IT procurement. And there was a large driver of why they would look at circular circular options to access tech at all. And, and that I found super interesting and also quite encouraging that putting like setting yourself on a sustainability strategy actually really influences how then it trickles down to up until the IT procurement and the company and really makes it, it makes a difference. I found that very interesting.
So sustainability for companies has been a very important criterion to use secondhand and rental options. But then I think it’s also about more rational and commercial choices. Right? So if you look at if you look at B2C, it’s like the ownership or the, the, the, the costs and the financial attractiveness from an individual perspective, but in the, in the B2B world, it’s also about the cost it’s about the flexibility. It’s, and it’s very, very much about the service provision, right? Because handling it for a company is a hassle. So if you go in with a service provision that can, that can really tackle some pain points in the, in the company and create additional value beyond sustainability, right?
So in our study, because the uptake of rental models, both in B2C and also B2B is considerable low and we, and we didn’t want to make deductions from a small data set, we did additional surveys with B2B and B2C rental providers to really understand what is the reason why you use that rental service.
Now that is of course not representative of the general population or the, right as is the, our, our general data set, but it provides some in depth insights into this. And if you look at, for example our, our. Additional survey with customers from Everphone, they is, they cite maintenance and service flexibility, the possibility to like outsource this whole end of life handling and general IT support is the key reasons of why that would rent.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Clear. Yeah. So I’ll also put the link to the full report in the show notes because there, there I mean, I, I read it and you know it, of course, by heart. So there’s much more data also on repair what we’re not covering right here.
Yes.
[00:23:00] Unveiling the actual lifetime of a device
Patrick Hypscher: Marianne, you mentioned all of this is part of the purpose to develop that methodology and I mean, that’s not done yet, but you’re in the process of doing it. Yeah. Can you give already give us a sneak preview of what, what are key elements of that methodology? What to watch out for, if you wanna assess the impact of your rental or a second hand model.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: What we’re doing in the second phase, you mean. What we’re doing now is to develop a systems maps of the electronics industry, because the way, the way use phase are typically hand handled in, in current approaches for methodology, it’s just an assumption, right? So potentially you would say, I assume that a rental, like a secondhand model, Doubles the, the useful lifetime, right?
And that’s just a parameter that you would put in there. And really we want to challenge that input parameter and move it from theoretical to fact based, right? So what we do is we need to understand what’s the full lifetime of a smart, of, of a smartphone, let’s say, right? So not only what’s my first use, potentially at.In Patrick’s hands. And then what’s the second phase for potentially my hands, how long, how intensively are we using it, but also what’s the potential third use and fourth use and end of life. And we talk very rarely about these things in general, right? So maybe we talk about the second life.
There’s very little talk about what happens afterwards? And that is crucial. So what we do is we, we, we seek to develop a systems map illustrating the two bigger flows. So what happens? Potentially after the second life, it gets sold to a broker who sells it to an African country or so. And there it gets used again, potentially one time, potentially two times, and then it reaches end of life.
And we need to factor in the whole use phases and all the use phases and the whole value generated over lifetime. Okay. Systems map explaining one of the device flows from, to Germany and then across Germany, and then after it may it may leave Germany again, right? We have a, we have connection quota in Germany of 38%.
That means that even if there’s some, some electronic devices ending up in the, in the drawers, 50 percent doesn’t end here. So we need to factor that in, right? Second phase, we look at. What’s the systems man, what’s the actual device flows, but we’ll explore the industry data from our, from our core partners who are also involved in international trade or also involved in repair and trading these devices, right? We do expert interviews, et cetera, right? And then we really develop the methodology, which like, what’s the, what’s the equation that you have to look at and what are the different input parameters? What’s the logic? And then we take all that and we transfer it into the step by step guidance.
So like from a, for, for a practitioner in the industry, providing a rental model, Okay. What should you do to measure the impact step by step. And then also highlighting the key inflection points, providing some data about what, what are the, the, in the happening in the current market, et cetera. But also raising challenges of, of course.
We don’t have data yet. There’s a problem, but still that’s the right methodology. So, and then it’s important for practitioners in the industry of what they can do to improve their impact measurement and their transparency, but also potentially to other stakeholders. To really help get the data that we need to make sophisticated discussions.
Patrick Hypscher: How do you determine the cutoff point of this following cycles? Because it makes sense to look at the third, maybe fourth life. Will you also consider things like a spare part harvesting and what happens to the spare parts? And then of course you could even go on, on a material level. And at some point you need to make a cut.
Do you already see where, where this will be?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: And of course, I mean, this is why we approach a topic from two different angles, right? So first of all, we develop the theoretical methodology angle, right? To say like, how, what would you have to factor in and what would you need to know and develop the step by step guidance, but then also have this layer of what kind of data do we have?
What’s, what’s the current practice, et cetera. To have this, this theoretical and this practical approach to the topic. And then of course, I mean, there’s a lot of data missing and at some point you don’t have to tweak one number or like you don’t have to get it too much too deep in a hole to get this one particular number.
[00:27:41] A basis for rental providers to compete on impact
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: If there’s so much blurriness still in the system, right? So we don’t think that we will be able to answer all the questions with a report, but what we want to, what we want to really have, it’s like develop some guidance about how we have to think and have a very clear agenda of what needs to be done to advance this discussion and to advance the impact measurement so that we get to a world where it’s not just about, is it circular? Is it linear, but also where rental providers can compete on impact, right? So that I can choose a good quality provider and that quality, not only in terms of service, but also in terms of impact generated becomes a competitive advantage. That’s what we work for.
[00:28:27] The full report available as of Q1 2025
Patrick Hypscher: Nice, I can’t wait to see that happening. Marianne, do you know when this when do you plan to publish it and where will people be able to find the full report?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: So it’s going to be published at the end of Q1 and next year. So roughly about half a year. And we’ll be found at our homepage, but also in the homepages of our partners. And we certainly also do a launch event where we will also not only will present the results, but also invite for broader discussion.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay, so if, if you’re listening to this episode after spring 2025, you will definitely find the report already. I’ll put the link to Circularity in the in the show notes. So Yeah, and before you’re happy, you might be able to join the launch event.
[00:29:10] Suitable product and relevant customer needs are decisive
Patrick Hypscher: Marianne, to close it up I have three generic questions.
The first one is from the perspective of a brand or manufacturer who wants to start a circular product as a service. What is the main thing you need to make sure?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: I’d say from a manufacturer point of view, I’d first have a look at whether my product is suitable for, for a circular product right. But then I would really look at what could be the need of my consumer, of my user that I could fulfill better with a rental provision than with a sales provision.
And then if I, if I find a good answer to the first question, I would then also ask the question of do I have what it takes to fulfill that need? Or do I have to have a partner for that? Or what’s my really like the, the, who could best fulfill that need or with whom I could do that.
[00:30:09] Further uptake of rental, impact measurement and data collection expected
Patrick Hypscher: What are the significant trends in circular renting for the next five years?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Circular renting. That’s an interesting term. Well, what do you mean by that?
Patrick Hypscher: So it’s renting with a circular ambition.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Okay. So I think, or I hope, and I foresee a general uptake of rental services. Circular or not, right? We’ll be focusing more on, on the service orientation, right? And providing benefits to customers such as the limited hassle of dealing with devices of repair in end of life disposal, right? And we see all through that in our report, right?
Even though there was a, only a 1 percent market penetration, there’s a high intention of of rental for the future. So, so 8 percent said that they can foresee, or they can imagine renting the next device rather than purchasing it. And of course there’s an, always a gap between the intention and the actual action, but that would be an eight fold increase.
So I think there is some, some potential, but that is in general for, for circular rental, I do hope. And that’s also what we’re contributing that there’s will be more focus on what’s the actual impact of rental. And there’s more, more awareness of this and more discussions and more also scrutiny and research about that.
And I think third and connected with the latter. Is the tracking, like the, the increasing digitization and the possibilities to check and trace devices, not only in the use phase right now, but like, my hands, but also for, for the end of life, for the export, because in the end, we cannot measure impact if we don’t have any data.
So the product come, the product passport, for example, generally the provision of data Not only from the, for on the product itself, but also throughout the life will really, really increase the database for, for this, this more sophisticated look at impact. And I think it’s also be very interesting because this discussion of what we’re doing with our devices in Germany at the end of the at the end of life or at the, in the bit, right? We have an indication of 50 percent being exported. That’s something we should definitely talk more about and definitely look more into. Because renting is seldomly done until the end of life. And that we have to understand. So this, with this increasing tracking and data availability of, The use phases of devices and the actual uses I think there, there’s, there will be also more focus on that.
Patrick Hypscher: Okay. Yeah, I can see that as well. And my last question is about people. So Circularity FM is about sharing knowledge and connecting people. And maybe, or you certainly have things you want to accomplish right now or challenges to overcome. So what kind of people who listen right now should reach out to you, Marianne?
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: I I’d say in general, people who are looking to actually get circular business models going on the ground. But probably a little bit more specific. I mean, we’ve talked about now now about the measurement of impact. And I know that there is quite a lot of work being done on that out there on this topic.
So if you know about resources or researchers that we should know about, we’re working on impact of rental in particular, then by all means, reach out. We don’t seek to replicate anything. What we don’t want to be Like producing something just because we did it, we just, we really want to contribute to filling a gap, right?
So if you know anything that we should know about this gap, reach out, or if you want to have a discussion about how to measure impact of rental, that’s in general, that’s also goes for other industries, right? And then of course, as I said, we are now really digging deeper into the electronic space. And we’ve already worked on in the, in the sector for quite some time, but if you know more about electronic trade across the world and the export and import, the recycling, et cetera, all this general, the market dynamics of the, of, of brokers and all of that B2B world, it’s always, always happy to have a chat.
Patrick Hypscher: Nice. So I’ll, I’ll put the link to circularity in, in the show notes and also the link to your profile, Mariana. Thanks for providing these insights and more or less in the middle of UNDRESS, so I can’t wait to see the results. And yeah, thanks for driving that topic for the whole community.
Dr. Marianne Kuhlmann: Well, thank you. And thank you for having me. And if you haven’t done have a look at the latest report and let me know what you think.
Patrick Hypscher: This was another episode of PaaS Decoded. 16 conversations about the fine details of product as a service. If you liked it, share this episode with colleagues or on social media. If you missed a question or topic, please send me an email so I can improve the conversations for you. If you learned something from this episode, please provide a review via Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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