Pioneers Podcast by Lyreco
The podcast from Lyreco that explores the Future of Work, from Lyreco's innovation team.
Each episode we talk to a pioneer of the future of work, exploring the themes and trends that will shape the workplaces of tomorrow.
Pioneers Podcast by Lyreco
Beyond Carbon Footprints: What Electronics Sustainability Really Means
The path to sustainable electronics isn't straightforward, but Trust International's ESG Manager Arjan Steenbergen is navigating it with remarkable dedication. Having spent his entire career at Trust since 1995, Steenbergen's journey from IT to sustainability exemplifies how environmental consciousness can evolve within corporations.
Electronics sustainability presents unique challenges - how do you make products more environmentally friendly when they're essentially "chemicals put together with electricity running through them doing something magical"? Trust approaches this complexity through comprehensive life cycle assessments, examining impacts from production to end-of-life. This methodical approach reveals that different products require different sustainability strategies: for mice, it might mean incorporating rechargeable batteries and recycled plastics; for keyboards, it could involve designing for repairability.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring the apparent contradiction between product longevity and carbon footprints. Counterintuitively, a longer-lasting electronic device might calculate a higher overall carbon footprint simply because it consumes energy for more years. This reveals how current sustainability metrics often lack critical context, prompting Steenbergen to advocate for more sophisticated communication approaches - perhaps expressing impact as carbon footprint per year rather than as a lifetime figure.
Looking ahead, the European Union's Eco-Design for Sustainable Products Regulation will fundamentally transform electronics design. Batteries will need to be removable, parts replaceable, and products more repairable overall. For Trust, this means rethinking product architecture from the ground up, eliminating practices like gluing components together that make disassembly difficult. While these changes present engineering challenges, they represent crucial steps toward true circularity.
The passion driving this transformation isn't just regulatory compliance - it's a genuine belief in building a more sustainable future. As Steenbergen puts it, having a level regulatory playing field helps, but seeing "so many people active in this space" provides the real energy to continue pushing forward. His story reminds us that behind corporate sustainability initiatives are individuals deeply committed to making meaningful environmental progress, one product design decision at a time.
Find out more about the Future of Work conference here: https://www.future-of-work.eu/
Trust: https://www.trust.com/en
Edelman trust index: https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer
Welcome to the Pioneers podcast from Lyrico. I'm Mark Curtis. Every week we're speaking to pioneers, experts and thought leaders in the field of the workplace. This week I was fortunate enough to speak to Arjan Steenbergen from Trust. Now, trust are one of our suppliers. They make computer peripherals, mice keyboards. I think a lot of people have heard of them.
Speaker 1:And a quick note here I am terrible at pronouncing people's names, dutch names especially. For some reason, there is a particular mental block, and Arjan was kind enough to beforehand say look, you can call me. You can call me by the English pronunciation, you can call me by the Dutch pronunciation. I think I managed to achieve neither of those two things, but I very much enjoyed chatting to him nonetheless. He's a real expert when it comes to all of the incredibly complicated, incredibly complicated topics around sustainability and consumer electronics, the supply chain, life cycle assessment. I mean, honestly, it goes on and I particularly enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1:I learned a lot about some of the issues around circularity and sustainability in electronics. I also learned and I think it was really interesting towards the end of the conversation when we dived into some of the drivers for the industry what the role of companies like Trust and what the role of companies like Lyrica and their competitors Logitech and Apple, what the role of these companies is in driving real change. So I hope you enjoy listening to this podcast as much as I enjoyed recording it. So, without further ado, let's get started. Welcome, arjan Steenbergen, and apologies again for not being very good at pronouncing Dutch names. Arjan, if you could introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about what you do, that would be really great as a starter.
Speaker 2:Hi Mark. Yeah, thanks for having me here. So my name is Arjan Steenbergen, or Arjan Steenbergen in Dutch. I'm ESG manager at Trust International. So Trust you probably know as a manufacturer of a lot of accessories digital accessories like mice, keyboards, headsets. We do it a very long time already, since 1983. So a long time in business. I also work at the company already quite a long time, since I started in 1995 as an intern, and I'm still here.
Speaker 1:I mean, that is a long time, yeah. So literally, literally almost your entire career is being spent, spent with trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is still my first employer. Wow yeah it's not my first job, because I did many different things in trust. So I worked in IT, I ran the internet department, I've worked in product management, developing products and now recently I'm ESG manager and full-time working on sustainability.
Speaker 1:Okay well that I mean that's a really good place to start because you know it's really interesting that I mean that's a really good place to start because you know it's really interesting that you've been in the company a long time. You've worked in many of the different areas in the company. So what was your? What was the move to the, to the sustainability part of the business? Um, you know what triggered that Was it was. Was that something you were already quite interested in, or has that evolved over time because of your expertise in other areas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in Trust we have an internal team called the Gleffer Green team where we work together with different departments. We work together to improve sustainability for Trust. That started many years ago I think in 2019 already and from the product side, I was part of that team. So that's how we got started working on sustainability and from my role as a research manager or sourcing manager at the time, I was very much involved with working with our manufacturing partners. So it was a natural thing to do to work on improving our products. So at that time, we introduced the use of recycled plastic in our products. So that was a very interesting to do, very interesting project to work with all our manufacturing partners to introduce that. And yeah, that got me introduced into sustainability and yeah, I was very interested in that topic and, uh, and last year, the opportunity arise arose to do that full-time and okay that's how it's happened.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's. I mean, that's fantastic, it's interesting, I I think. I think that reflects a lot of the journeys that you see in companies, don't you? As sustainability becomes more important, the roles start to consolidate, people understand where the requirements are, where the need is. I think, with trust, it's obviously a little more different than, say, a company like the one that I work for, because you're actually producing, you're doing R&D, you're designing new products. Maybe it would be a good place to start would be sort of taking it back a step and and really just understanding what are the, what are the big issues with electronics, with peripherals, accessories, in terms of sustainability and and then, from that, understand a little bit about where where trust is, is is interested in, in making changes or what's driving those changes.
Speaker 2:So maybe you could tell me a little bit about you know, first of all, what are the big challenges around around electronics and sustainability in ESG yeah, electronics have a big, big challenge regarding sustainability because, yeah, in the end electronic products is a lot of chemicals put together and you put electricity through it and it does something magical. So it's quite a challenge to to introduce sustainability in in those kind of products. But there are always opportunities to improve. So that is what we strive for. We improve what we can with electronics. So it starts with the use of sustainable materials, so it can be recycled materials, it can be renewable materials. And you see now in the industry that a lot of research is going on in how to improve electronics, because that's quite a difficult subject.
Speaker 1:And I guess oh sorry, I'm speaking over you I mean, I guess there's two things as well, isn't it? I mean, if I look at a classic product, and I've actually got one of your products here, actually you've got the electronic component of it, which is, you know, the pcb and the, and the solder and the chips and all that kind of stuff, and then you've got all the stuff that sits around it, right, the plastic. So so is that? Do you almost treat that as two different challenges, um, or two different streams, or is it, or do you, or do you take it as a kind of a, you know, a kind of a attack, it as a kind of a whole problem?
Speaker 2:now what? What we do is we? We use the, the method of life cycle analysis to see where is the impact in in the products. So this can be in the production, can be in the use of the product, transport or in the end of life phase of a product. So and that varies for each product In your example, in a mouse, the electronics itself you cannot really make more sustainable, but you can make sure that it uses less energy.
Speaker 2:In that way, you can still make improvements. Also, the way how you power the mouse. You can use disposable batteries, what people are used to already for so many years, but you can also use rechargeable batteries. That's much lower impact. And then, of course, for the physical outside of the electronics, you can work on the materials of the product. So there are so many different facets that you can work on. Of course, the packaging is a very nice thing to improve, make sure that there's no materials inside that cannot be recycled. So each products, you need to look into what, what does it consist of, what are the materials, the processes are involved and have a look at where you can do improvements and how do you tell that story?
Speaker 1:because it's again you know, I mean, if I think about other other categories or other industries where you've got maybe single material products you know you can point to.
Speaker 1:I mean looking at fashion, for example, or even workwear, you can point towards it and say, okay, the materials that we're using for the production of this pair of trousers or this dress or this shirt, we can source the cotton from here and then we can put the, the cotton from here, and then we can, we can put them into a circular, circular stream. So there's a kind of a, an end of life process that can reclaim some of those materials and put them back into the, you know, into the circular economy. And it's a fairly easy story to tell, right, whereas what you've just talked about, I mean you've you've very quickly listed a whole list of different things. You've got power consumption, you've got the, you've got the, the enclosures, you've got the electronics themselves, you've got the transportation and the packaging. How, how easy is it for you to to tell the, to tell the story of the life cycle assessments that you've done and and where those savings come from?
Speaker 2:and to tell the story to end users.
Speaker 1:Yeah to end users, or I mean, you know, trust is trust, is you operate in both camps, right? So you're doing b2b business, but you're also doing business as consumers and I think we can get on to that in a second, because I think that's quite an interesting distinction as well. But yeah, I mean okay, in the b2b world, for example, because that's where we're operating in. How are you, how are you telling that story to your retailers or your purchasers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we tell our story, for example, via our impact reports. So yearly we report on all the activities that we do, not only the things that change, but we try to tell the whole story. So we show all the things we did to improve, not only to tell our story, but also to inspire others, because our industry is not very well known for implementing sustainability in a very quick way. So hopefully it also inspires others. But that's an important story and it's also part of the product story. So when there's recycled plastics we mentioned that, of course, and that goes hand in hand with another important aspect of doing sustainability when you make claims regarding sustainability, you also have to prove them. So you have, for example, certification. So when you have a trust product in your hands, the packaging you will see logos to to prove that that's there, the materials are indeed recycled.
Speaker 1:that's a very important part of the story and again drawing a distinction between the b2b world and the consumer world. I guess in b2b it's it's quite transactional, isn't it? Because you will have compliance and sustainability teams in the companies that are buying your products and they will want to see those standards and they can then slot that into their own ESG reporting. With direct-to-consumer products or through retailers, how does that messaging change Are consumers interested in? Is that part of the purchasing journey for them? Is that a consideration, or is that something that's still evolving? Do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is evolving. We do see a clear distinction where we have basically home and office products and we have gaming products and we sell those products in different markets.
Speaker 2:So what you see is that for home and office, the sustainability features are very important and it's important to communicate them very clearly. In gaming, it's less of an important matter, so of course we communicate it to show that the product is made of different materials or other benefits that there are. But you do see that it's more important in the home and office, and especially in B2B, than in, for example, for the gaming market.
Speaker 1:Right. So I guess gamers are more interested in things like latency and responsiveness and ergonomics, et cetera, et cetera, whereas home office people might be more interested in making better choices in terms of sustainability, right?
Speaker 2:Indeed, yeah, for gamers. They're probably interested in features and specifications. I do expect that will change, because you see that younger people are often more into sustainability, but currently this is what we see now in the market.
Speaker 1:And I mean to be sort of provocational, I suppose a little bit. You're not Apple, you're not Logitech, so you're a smaller brand. I think I can say that, yeah, but how are you punching above your weight in terms of sustainability when you're in a market with those players? How does what you're doing from a sustainability perspective stack up against the Apples and the Logitechs? Is it a key consideration in the way that they're doing their marketing, or do you see what you're doing as a point of difference for consumers and for businesses that you're supplying?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's very good to see Apple Logitech doing a lot of great work in sustainability. We need that kind of companies to set an example in the market. Trust is a challenging brand. We want to follow that as quickly as possible. I think we're quite unique in that because in our corner of the market there are not many companies doing this kind of thing. So it's a good story for our brand, of course, making a difference, but also, we hope, to inspire other brands to do more in this area, because in the end, we all do it for a reason, and I hope that other brands will also follow suit.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, that's an interesting point, isn't it? Because what I get a sense of is that, speaking to you and I've spoken to you before about this that it is largely the reasons why Trust are trying to make better decisions about sourcing and and and materials and so forth, is because there is a general, you know, a genuine belief that that we need to be making you know better products from a sustainability perspective, without, without necessarily calling out your big competitors. Do you do you think that for them, that it is driven by belief, or do you think it's just a hygiene factor for them, that they just feel that they need to, they need to put those labels on their products or they need to say that they're doing the right thing? Um, I mean is? Is there a? Is there a? Is it driven by a company's desire to do the right thing, or is it? Is it simply simply responding to to the trends as they are?
Speaker 2:I think this from. Usually it goes hand in hand. You want it a bit, it also must be possible, of course, and that for that you need to drive. If you really want it, you can make things. You can make things possible. I think for many companies, many companies, it's sort of checkbox marketing. We want to do something in the area but there's no inherent motivation that drives that process. But there are very good examples of companies that are very much into this, but not for everybody, and you see that in the amount of effort that they put into their sustainability programs. With a lot of companies, for example, you see that they have big stories but in the end they only work on the carbon footprint of their company in their own operations.
Speaker 1:But not in the products.
Speaker 2:so, and that's 99 of our footprint, and same for those companies, your products, those that's where the footprint is.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really good distinction to make, because, I mean, there are certainly lots of companies out there in other industries I think you know. You can point to the petrochemical industry, for example, who are saying that they're putting solar panels on their forecourts but they're not addressing the, the core part of what they do, you know but but it's again as you say, it's a nice I hesitate to use the word greenwashing, but it's a nice story to tell to to get the headlines, I guess, right. So okay, so that's good.
Speaker 1:I think we've established trust is, you know, a smaller player in the market, but one that's definitely punching above its weight in terms of their sustainability message and the reasons that they're doing that and the, the very you know, the the different areas within the business that you're, you're, you're trying to make these better choices around materials, energy, packaging, transport, etc. Good. So, going back into the electronics, because this is something that I was really interested in when we were talking before when are the key levers in electronics supply chain, manufacturing, et cetera, material choice, where are the levers that Trust can actually pull to make your products more sustainable? Just looking at things like the chemicals, as you pointed out at the beginning, that go into making the electronic side of it, and, and, and, and. What is trust doing, you know, in that, in that area, or what are they hoping to achieve in the next couple of years?
Speaker 2:now trust is working with manufacturing partners in china, so product development goes hand in hand with those partners. For the products where we make our own designs, it is important that we use eco design principles when designing products. That really helps to prepare a product to have a smaller carbon footprint. So that means that you already take into account that the product will have recycled materials, but also that, for example, you can easily replace parts If something is broken. Cable gets damaged for what reason or whatever.
Speaker 2:Being able to replace the cable and continue to use products, those are very important things to expand the lifespan of a product. But you need to take that into account from the start. So when we design products ourselves and we also train our manufacturing partners who do part of the design on these principles to follow, if you put batteries in the products, use rechargeable batteries and make it in a way that you can also remove those batteries easily. So if you take that into account from the design states, that has such a big impact on the sustainability of your products. So that's what we try to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean that's quite interesting. So if I look at some of the Trust products that we use and I've seen other people using them so is this something that is part of the roadmap or something that's already implemented, that there is that kind of modularity or repairability built into products, because typically you wouldn't. If you have a keyboard, for example, and one of the keys stops working, you know you would tend to just throw it in the bin right. Is there a path to repair or doing something additional with that or extending the lifespan of it, or is that something that we're looking at in the future?
Speaker 2:Well, I expect that will come more and more. There is a right to repair legislation, of course, but that's not yet applicable to our products. But there is also other regulations that will require from every company to do more in that area. In Europe we have the Eco Design for Sustainable Product Regulations. One of the items that will be in there is the requirement that people can repair products easily themselves. So you need to have parts available, you need to have instructions available, so that will become legislation. So we already prepare for that. We're already making parts available because it helps consumers a lot. So we already do that for several product groups, but in the end that will be also a mandatory thing for a lot of products.
Speaker 1:Okay, Even for mice and wireless keyboards, that kind of thing that will need to be built into the designs in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, indeed, and it's not that you replace a chip inside a mouse. Of course that's way too difficult, of course, for a normal end user. But if you lose the receiver for your wireless mouse, you are able to order a replacement part, or if the feet are worn down and you can replace the feet of the mouse easily and then you can use it for another two years. That would be great, of course. So that will be an interesting development and that will help users to use the products longer.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's a bit of a sidetrack really, but I got quite interested a while back in the idea that, especially when all the hype around 3D printing came out, that you know there was this possibility that you could print off small components to replace, you know, small bits of electronics or items like that. I mean, is that something that's in the roadmap? You know the ability for maybe retailers to rapidly create licensed parts for mice, or is that just not economically or technically viable at the moment?
Speaker 2:It's not something that we are currently looking into, but we always keep our options open. So for many parts, there is electronics involved and, of course, you cannot print electronics. No, yeah, yeah, absolutely so yeah.
Speaker 1:So just going back to um, so so you know, as I understand it, then you know there's legislation that's coming and that's informing the kind of design decisions that you're taking now. When you're, when you're, when you're building and designing these products, they're already incorporating post-consumer, recycled plastic for the plastic elements of it. What does the end of life look like for these products? What's the legislation pushing us towards? And also what is in place now, if we want to, when we've got a keyboard or a mouse that has finally given up the ghost, what's the route for there? And is that something that Trust is involved in? Or is there a bigger ecosystem that's being built up around that?
Speaker 2:Well, the industry has come together to arrange these things. There is extended producer responsibility regulations in Europe and as part of that, you are obligated, as a manufacturer, to contribute to the waste collection of your products.
Speaker 1:Okay, is that just a monetary thing, or are you actually providing some of the infrastructure for that as well?
Speaker 2:Now companies don't need to do that individually, so there's a collective of organizations that handle that. So the WEEE is an arrangement where e-waste is being handled, so it's being collected and recycled in the best way that is possible at this moment. So there are mechanisms for that. And, of course, we need to make sure that our products are easily recyclable, and one of the things that is coming up is that batteries will need to be removable from our products. So that will have big impact on certain categories, I can imagine. I mean, in the old days you could easily replace the battery of your Nokia phone, but nowadays, with your iPhone, replace your battery is highly specialized work, not something you can do easily. But in the future that will become mandatory, that products will have removable batteries.
Speaker 1:And that will include things like mice and keyboards and various other powered peripherals as well.
Speaker 2:Indeed, yeah. So having a keyboard with a rechargeable battery is very convenient, but towards the future those batteries will need to be removable.
Speaker 1:Okay, Currently they're not, though, but it's something that's sort of in the design roadmap for the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, indeed, that's something that we now need to take into account into the designs for the coming years.
Speaker 1:That said, the batteries will be removable by the time the regulation becomes active. So, looking at where we are right now, what are the things that are challenging you the most now and what are the things that you're currently trying to as a company, trying to get your head around or trying to move towards?
Speaker 2:Yeah, an important part where we can make a difference is in the materials. An important part where we can make a difference is in the materials. So we handled already plastics.
Speaker 2:It was a very interesting project, a big project, but you also see a lot of benefit from that. Now the challenge is to also replace other materials with better alternatives, and especially steel, aluminium, iron those metals that are quite important to do next. So that's what we're doing now research into and, by the way, it's not so much replacing a material with another material that's the difficult part. But when you do these changes, you also need to make sure that you can prove it to so, finding alternatives that are also that can be certified by a third party. That's just.
Speaker 1:that's really the big challenge right, yeah, I mean, it certainly sounds challenging, I mean, and I guess the thing is as well when you're introducing new materials, you've also then got to introduce new waste management or or circular economy management streams as well. Right, because you know you can use a material that's recoverable, but only if the infrastructure is in place to to actually recover that material right.
Speaker 2:Indeed, I often get offers for, for new materials and then they say it's fully, fully circular and that's nice and all, but if you need a special waste stream in order to get those benefits, yeah, that's destined to fail. People are not going to drive on the kilometers to bring the mouse somewhere, they just throw it away in the bin, which they not supposed to do. But that's what happens. And so, yeah, if if a material depends on a specialized waste stream, then it's difficult to make that a success.
Speaker 1:So what I mean as of now then, because I know that there are, you know, different countries. Obviously have very different capabilities, but what is that waste stream looking like now for the products that we're using right now for for consumers or for home office workers or office workers? What does that look like? I mean, I'm guessing businesses have a slightly different approach, because they might have an it department who will know about e-waste and and hopefully be advising their, their, their, their users and the offices to, to return stuff back to the it departments and then they can do bigger collections. But if you're a smaller company or you're a home user or a consumer, what is the route? What should we be doing with our used electronics, mice and keyboards, etc. And then what happens next?
Speaker 2:Well, for electronics it's important to collect them separately. So in Europe I mentioned the WEEE system that collects the materials. So you will find a lot of collection points. It can be in the supermarket, it can be at a special waste collection location, so there are many places where you can drop off e-waste. So I highly recommend to do that.
Speaker 1:And then what happens then? So if I take my mouse to the supermarket, car four around the corner and my mouse has stopped working, I've dropped it in their electronics recycling box. What's happening next?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so then it's processed by companies that are specialized in processing e-waste. Basically, they first sort out the products that contain batteries, because batteries are a fire risk, so they want to take out the products with the batteries and then remove the batteries from those items. Basically the products get shredded into tiny pieces and then the pieces get sorted out, so plastic with plastic, metals with metals, and then each material has their own waste stream where it goes. Some things can be recycled, for example the plastics, the metals can be reused, the electronics themselves, so the PCB and all the chips and capacitors and resistors on it that cannot really be reused. So what they do is they basically make a soup of it and then at the end they can still extract some special materials.
Speaker 1:But that's how products get recycled into their parts, and is that happening in Europe, or elements of that? I mean, I guess it's a pretty complicated supply chain, right, because you're going to have, once it's separated out, your battery is going to go some one place. Pcb soup is going to doesn't sound very attractive, does it A PCB soup? But the PCB soup is going to go somewhere else. So are there any issues?
Speaker 1:I mean because we do hear news reports and exposés on you know, and we've seen these horrendous situations in Africa and places like that, where you've got villages with huge mounds of burning PCBbs outside of villages with horrible toxic smoke and so forth. Obviously that's, that's not, that's not the fault or necessarily even the responsibility of the companies that are manufacturing these things, but presumably there are. There are challenges, right with understanding where these, where these waste streams are going, and presumably as well I mean one would hope there's legislation around it to make sure they go in the right direction. But is Trust as a producer, are you involved in understanding what that waste stream looks like or what that circular journey could be?
Speaker 2:We are very much interested to learn waste stream looks like or what that circular journey could be. We are very much interested to learn about how the e-waste recycling works, because there's always improvements we're very eager to learn about, especially how batteries are processed. We try to incorporate that in the design of our products as part of the eco-design principles that we prepare products for. We try to incorporate that in our in the design of our products as part of the eco design principles that we prepare products for recycling. Um, so yeah, but I mentioned the example that batteries can be removable, right, um?
Speaker 1:yeah, so companies will be very happy with that so does that mean?
Speaker 1:I mean, so is there a kind of a standardization process now, which means that if I'm, if I'm on a waistline and I've got a whole bunch of different mice and keyboards coming past, some of them are trust, some of them are logitech or whatever, because there is a standard about the removability it's, you know I will, as a worker on that line or using the machine or whatever, there'll be a similar way of extracting the, the battery component, from it, you, from a range of different products. Is it that level of standardization, or is it just simply that if I hit it with a hammer, I know the battery is going to fall out relatively cleanly. It's not going to be glued in, for example, or something like that?
Speaker 2:It's to the level indeed that batteries should not be glued in because that makes them very difficult to remove. So if you can open the product and extract the batteries in an easy way, that's already fine for now what we know of the regulations at this point. So make sure that the battery is not totally encased, very difficult to extract glued. That's the worst thing you can do.
Speaker 1:So these are the kind of changes that are happening almost behind the scenes that consumers will never know about, because you know, it's very rare that. I mean, my 11 year old son will always take apart electronics if he thinks that they're broken, because that's his, you know, it seems to be his pastime. If anything stops working in the house, it's like can I take it apart please? Um, so he's he's probably.
Speaker 1:He's probably aware of the rules around glue, even if he doesn't know it, but for most people they wouldn't know that. One of the biggest changes, then, is that simply that batteries are not glued in anymore, or they're not held in by, because the other thing was to use, um, thermo melted plastic to kind of encase components, you know, as a way of reducing the amount of screws and things that go into these things as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it depends on the application, because sometimes you need to have protections in place to avoid accidents. If consumers can touch electronic parts too easily that have a high voltage, that are quite dangerous, of course you need to protect for that. Well, that's what I use my son for.
Speaker 1:He's like a natural insulator. If he's, if he can survive after dismantling the television set, then then I think it's probably safe to use. Very good, honestly, it was. It's the cheapest thing you can do with a child is, you know we? We sometimes go to the flea markets and he will buy a what he knows to be a broken um you know hi-fi unit or something like that, just to take it apart.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think it's the search for magnets, I think is the thing he loves to find a magnet in a used electronics thing.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of my childhood. Nowadays we bring broken electronics to the waste collection, but when I was young you put it at the side of the street so together with my father I would bike around and then you find some nice stereo set and you hope that it worked or it could be easily repaired, and that that did work sometimes, and otherwise she had something to tear apart. And, yeah, you learn a lot from those program products. So I think your son is very smart in this.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope so. I hope that he'll progress from pulling things apart to actually putting them back together again at some point. I mean, I was the same, to be honest. I was exactly the same. I used to love dismantling old electronics and I briefly had a time in my life when I found that if I put current through PCBs I could make them smoke, but only disappointingly only once. They only smoke once.
Speaker 2:And then that's it, once the smoke is out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you let the spirit of the PCB escape. I'm quite curious to know what's kind of in the roadmap for trust. So what are you looking at? I mean, obviously you know that there's all this legislation coming and you get good sort of advanced warning on that and that's great, because it you know, r&d and product design roadmaps tend to be quite long. I mean, I'm guessing you've got, you know, three, four, five year horizons on that kind of stuff, um, and maybe even further. I mean it's you know, I'd be interested to know what that looks like. So what are, what are the sort of the, the, if you're able to share it, what are? Are the things that you know are coming down the line or that are going to really change peripherals and design over the next, you know, say, five or 10 years?
Speaker 2:I think that will mostly impact the design of products is the eco-design for sustainable products regulations.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:At this moment, we only know the framework and the things that they want to accomplish, but we don't know yet how. We are still waiting for the details on that. What is expected for that? But we already know that we will need to calculate the carbon footprint of products. That will be a part and we need to communicate on that. There will be requirements for repairability, for recyclability, durability, how we need to improve on that?
Speaker 1:that's unclear. Durability is an interesting thing actually, isn't it? Because we've kind of got used to this idea that things will only last for a couple of years. But that's not necessarily.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be that way, right, so indeed, but there's also a weird contradiction because, on one hand, you want products to last longer, because that's in everybody's benefit, of course, but at the same time, when you make the the lifespan of the product longer, the carbon footprint will go up and right so they expect that the footprint to go down. So that's quite in a contradiction why is that then?
Speaker 1:why does the carbon footprint? Because surely that the lifetime carbon footprint of a product which lasts longer should be. You know, if I use a mouse for five years, intuitively, then the carbon footprint for a mouse that only lasts for two years should be higher right if you, if you take it over time so for the products?
Speaker 2:uh no, because it saves three years of energy use if you only use it for two years.
Speaker 2:So from the perspective of the product well that's assuming I'm not going to replace it with another product, though, right yeah, so from your perspective, you, you use the product longer, so that's that's better from your perspective because you have a smaller footprint. But from the product perspective, uh yeah, a shorter lifespan is shorter, is less energy use and it's a smaller footprint is shorter, is less energy use and it's a smaller footprint, so that I mean that sounds problematic yeah.
Speaker 2:So there are more of those contradictions that we are dealing with. So that's one of the reasons why you don't see a carbon footprint communicated a lot yet, because, yeah, that's quite confusing. Also, standards are missing on how to do that exactly, because what is the lifespan of a mouse and how do you determine that? It's very unclear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's. I mean that's genuinely fascinating. I I mean, I guess, if you start from the position that I'm going to be using a computer for the next 10 years and I will you know in that time I will want to use a mouse over that 10-year period so you could look at it from the perspective of what is the lifetime carbon footprint of me using a mouse, any mouse, and in that respect it makes sense, therefore, for there to only be or to be a you know as fewer mice it's so funny to be talking about mice so much but as fewer mice as possible during that 10 years. Right, I mean ideally one mouse. Right, but from from a product perspective, if you're communicating the carbon footprint of the mouse, you want a mouse. I'm not saying you do want a mouse, but it looks better from a calculation perspective if you're saying that actually I'm only getting two years energy use out of a mouse indeed so that, but that doesn't tell the story at all, does it, no?
Speaker 2:so I think we need to um progress on how to communicate the impact of products, because now we are very focused on one number what is the carbon footprint of the product but it doesn't tell the whole story. You miss context. So I think the industry needs to take steps. In that I think we're still quite early. There are only a few industries that are a bit more advanced in this respect. But yeah, the more you work with this kind of data, the more you see those contradictions, and yeah, that's difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is difficult. That's really interesting. I mean it's, I guess the challenge is as well. It's nuanced and complicated, which traditionally means that it's really hard for consumers to understand. Indeed, yeah, so I mean, I was, funnily enough, I was talking about the notion of carbon footprints earlier.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know if you're aware, but the whole, the whole idea of the carbon footprint was, in fact, invented by an advertising agency for a petrochemical company in order to shift responsibility for carbon or climate change to consumers rather than the very large companies that are producing the raw materials, and it's turned into a useful number. But, as you say, it really puts the emphasis on the product rather than either the usage of the product, the decisions, the lifestyle choices that people make, the world in which we live that demands that we have access to certain products in order to interact with, you know, all the other things that we do in our modern lives. I mean, it's almost unfair on an individual, and potentially even the manufacturer, to have all the focus on a very specific metric right, because, as you say, it doesn't tell the whole story at all, does it?
Speaker 2:Indeed, it's much better to have one mouse that lasts 10 years and that maybe has a 10 kilogram of co2 footprint, instead of having three mice with five kilogram footprints each. I mean, you have to look at from, from your perspective, and that's something that we're not used to to do yet there's almost a secondary dimension, isn't there?
Speaker 1:which is, you know, if you can imagine I mean, we've been talking about this for a while, I think, in the industry this idea that when you because currently, when you buy food, for example, it tells you know it's got traffic lights on it, you know, is it gonna? Is it gonna give you a heart attack, or is it healthy? You know, green, orange, red, whatever you know they've managed to boil it down into something that's quite indeed, you know, again, very simplistic because it doesn't talk about, you know, some of the nuances around nutrition. But anyway, that's a whole other thing. But you could imagine a similar label on a, on a, on a mouse, when you buy it. You know it's, it's, it's low carbon, blah, blah. But then you also want another dimension on it, which is durability or lifespan, and then you want to be able to represent how that lifespan, you know, because then it becomes a ratio, right, you've got a ratio of carbon associated with the life cycle assessment of the product divided by the duration, almost, or something along those lines.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so either you get a carbon footprint where you also mention it's about x, many years, or you calculate it back to a carbon footprint per year. So, yeah, there are different ways to to to address this, but, um, yeah, something is needed, and do you think?
Speaker 1:and do you think trust is could be in a position to make those kind of changes? Because I'm and the reason I ask that is because I think one of the things I enjoy about the job that I do in the company that I work for, for lyrica, is that we feel that there is that we are in a privileged enough, you know position in the industry that we can actually push for change. Um, you know, we can lobby for change. We can influence our suppliers. We that we can actually push for change. We can lobby for change. We can influence our suppliers. We can insist that they develop more sustainable products so that we can then pass those products on to our customers. Do you think that trust is in a similar position where, potentially, you could help to tell a better story around durability versus footprint and all the other dimensions that need to be communicated?
Speaker 2:I mean that could be quite interesting. Of course, we can propose those ideas, but we are too small a player in the market to enforce anything. That's why we really need partners like Lureco that can ask these things, because if you request it, everybody will need to to comply with that. So it evens the playing field, doesn't it? I think that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's definitely. I can honestly say that's something I'd be really interested to talk to our sustainability team about. Is you know? Are we, are you know what? What? What dimensions are we actually looking at when we're talking about sustainability? Yes, we have. I mean they're probably screaming at the screaming at the speaker now if they're listening to this, because I know that they're very rigorous about how we measure sustainability of the products that we sell.
Speaker 1:But I'm genuinely going to go and have a talk to them and find out what those dimensions are. Maybe that would be a good podcast to do. Actually, we tend to not I tend to be against interviewing people from lyrical on our own podcast because I because it it turns into a bit of an advertorial podcast then. But uh, could be quite an interesting conversation to have actually with our sustainability team and find out, ask them those questions actually indeed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have a very, very good team. So, uh, yeah, I think that will be very interesting to very kind of you to say that I'll pass that on as well.
Speaker 1:they'll be very chuffed to to hear that. I feel like I've taken a lot of your time and maybe we should begin to wrap things up, but it'd be good to get your sense of you know. Stepping away from trust a little bit, you know, but knowing what you know about the wider industry around consumer electronics and B2B electronics, Do you think that things are happening fast enough? Do you think we're heading in the right direction? Are there beyond the actual producers and, as you say, you're a smaller producer you know what are the big things that you want to see happening or changing in the industry in the wider world?
Speaker 2:I think, from the climate perspective, things are going too slow when you see the things happening in the world. I think from the climate perspective, things are going too slow. When you see the things happening in the world right now, there's a bit of backlash against sustainability, while we should be making yeah, we've taken a step back with Trump.
Speaker 1:I mean, basically, haven't we it's?
Speaker 2:the.
Speaker 1:American market. They're deprioritizing sustainability legislation choices and I'm guessing that's gonna happen. Is trust big in the American market? They're deprioritizing sustainability legislation choices and I'm guessing that's going to have a. Is trust big in the American market as well, or is it more of a European?
Speaker 2:We are focused on Europe. So, we're not so much affected by America, but in the end, the whole world is affected by what's going on in America. So let's hope it's only a temporary setback. That's the main expectation. In the past, there have been setbacks at multiple times. Every time, after the small setback, we go on as we used to, and usually in a faster pace, so let's hope that from this setback, in the end, we can move faster forward. That's very much needed. That said, well, we need to go faster from an environment perspective.
Speaker 1:we do see so many new regulations being introduced in the eu that for many companies including ours it's it's a lot of work to to keep up, so that will be a big business challenge okay, um, we normally finish um the podcast and I should have given you some advanced warning on this so you can think about it, but we'll see how agile you can be in on the spot. I normally like to finish the podcast. You know the podcast is called um pioneers podcast. Um, who in your either professional or personal life do you look at as somebody who's inspired you from you know, who themselves has been a pioneer in some way, either even, as I say, to do with what you do for a living, or or maybe in a you know in a personal sense, who you're inspired by, who is a pioneer in your eyes? I will edit out the long pause if you need to think about it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I must say I'm not so much following individual people it could be brands as well.
Speaker 1:It could be companies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are so many organizations active in this space, so it's great to see that some of our competitors are working so hard on this. So many standards, organizations, working legislators so yeah, there's there's a lot, a lot going on. I go to a lot of events for a lot of webinars. It's good to see that so many people are active in this space. There's lots to do and that gives me a lot of energy to see all those positive actions going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have to agree.
Speaker 1:I think it's very easy to be quite cynical about sustainability in the business world and it's very easy to think that it's just something that individuals care about, that it's the classic 90s hippie with the recycling box in their kitchen, that they're the ones who are more concerned about sustainability.
Speaker 1:But actually I I absolutely agree with you that when you actually talk to, well, people like yourself in roles like the one you have and I do get to speak to a lot of people in sustainability roles in a number of different, uh, companies it it you realize that it's not just a, a marketing tag, that that people who are in these roles really, really believe it. They really want to make a difference in their companies and help their companies make better choices and, in their own way, contribute to the change that we need to see in the world, in the climate and the products that we use and materials that are used for it, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I think it's encouraging to see it, but you're right, it does need to move faster, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:We need to find a way of doing that. Yeah, so we need and legislation does help with that, because as a company, you want to move forward. But if does help with that because as a company you want to move forward but if all other companies are not moving forward, you're basically having products that cost more than from others.
Speaker 2:So it will be very good when the regulations are in place and they're clear for everybody, that we have a level playing field. That's very important, but, yeah, it's great to see so many people involved. It gives a lot of energy and also a lot of collaborations happening, and that's always very inspiring and nice to see.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great thought to finish on. So, arjan, thank you so much for taking the time today. It's really interesting and there's definitely some things there. That for taking the time today I. It's really interesting and there's definitely some things there that I didn't know about, and it's really given me food for thought, and I hope that the the people that listen to this podcast are also similarly inspired to to find out a little bit more about. You know what is actually a very complex and, as you say, very nuanced subject. So thank you so much for for taking the time today. I've really appreciate it and very much enjoyed our conversation yeah, you're welcome, but very nice to to join so that was me and and ajan talking about consumer electronics recycling, sustainability.
Speaker 1:I, as I said at the beginning, I really enjoyed chatting to him and I think actually I could have talked a lot longer once we actually got into into some of his more personal views about this. And it always really fascinates me when you talk to people in sustainability roles just how they've got there. It's a little bit like my job when you're working in innovation. Nobody really sets out in their career to go down that route. It's a little bit like I always laugh at the idea of people in school saying, oh, when I grow up I want to be a project manager. Nobody thinks like that. You know, these are jobs that you come to. You realise you have a passion or an aptitude. I think project management is a little like that. I especially think that sustainability is like that. I think that when you work in these companies and you're exposed to some of the practices, some of the legislation, the design decisions that have to be made, it can really attract a certain type of person and I think and I think our channel is one of those people. So it's, it's a great. It was a great um, a great conversation, and I really enjoyed it, and I'm, as I said, towards the end of the podcast as well. I think it could be quite interesting to speak to some people from within our own business about the role of big companies like ours in driving real sustainable change and really helping businesses and individuals make better purchasing decisions.
Speaker 1:I was minded of some research that was done with the Edelman Trust Index. They put it out every year. It's worth looking for it in just Google Edelman Trust Index and one of the things that struck me over the last few years is just how much consumers and businesses are actually looking to corporations to lead the kind of change that this world needs. It's almost as if we've kind of given up on governments now and we look to big companies to make these kind of changes. Not always ideal, given the fact that, ultimately, companies are very much driven in the part, driven by commercial concerns, but that's not to say there isn't room there within these companies for passionate individuals to change the course of where these companies are going and the practices that they continue to engage in.
Speaker 1:I would urge you, if you haven't already signed up for it, to take a look at the Future of Work conference on the 5th of June in Brussels. If it's already happened, if you're listening to this after that's happened, then hopefully you'll be able to come next year. But for those of you who are listening to this fresh, the Future of Work conference is in Brussels on the 5th of June, like ESG reporting, along with a whole host of other really, really interesting and absolutely crucial trends and topics related to the workplace. So if you haven't already found out about that, go along to the website. The link to that will be in the notes for this podcast and if you have a look on LinkedIn, you will see lots of posts about that as well. But for now, thank you very much for listening. Linkedin you will see lots of posts about that as well.
Speaker 2:But for now. Thank you very much for listening. See you soon.
