Sustainability Stories: Material Circularity Indicator (MCI)

Sustainability Stories:

Yet another tongue twister.... But trust us, this is an interesting one! Why?

Because the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) is an excellent tool to measure if products are designed according to the principles of Circular Economy. Therefore giving a great indication of the real circularity of a product.

In our last edition of Sustainability Stories we talked about the principles of Circular Economy.
After a definition of Circular Economy, we shared where we as a company are on our way to adapt those principles into our product design and business practices.

We previously mentioned that we calculated the MCI for the first 15 products that are featured on the independent comparison website for sustainable interior, called Inside/Inside. Now you can ask, why take that extra step?

To answer this question we have to look closer at what the MCI tells us.

The Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) is a number between 0 and 1. The closer to 1, the more circular the product. The MCI was introduced by the Ellen MacArthur foundation, the worldwide most recognized authority when it comes to the subject of Circular Economy. To calculate the MCI we look at the product's input, meaning which materials are used and to what extent they are sustainably organic, reused or recycled. Next to input, the MCI also looks at the output, at the end-of-life scenario of the product. At the output side the MCI looks to what extent the respective materials are actually getting recycled or reused.

The closer to 1 the better

A score of 1, or 100%, is very hard to realise. This would mean that no new materials are ever used. In most cases, at least a small percentage of new material is used to avoid a loss in quality and to ensure that the product still meets its requirements. Therefore a score of 1 is quite hard to realise.

We are quite happy with the scores that we received now, but will still work harder to receive an even higher scored in the upcoming years.
Our Viewlite plus 58.622 for example received a MCI score of 63% and our Viewmate 52.642 even a MCI score of 70%.

Curious to find out how the rest of our first 15 products scored?
Then visit Inside/Inside.

Next steps:

We don't want to leave it at the 15 products for which we already calculated the MCI. Our goal for the upcoming year is to add an additional 15 products on Inside/Inside and, related thereto, create the EPD’s and calculate the MCI for those products as well.

So keep your eyes open and don't miss our next Sustainability Story.

Do you have any questions about this topic?
Then don't hesitate to contact me.