Book your place now for the Fifth Annual Conference of the Centre for Industrial Sustainability, Capturing Sustainable Value.  The conference will take place on 7 - 8 July 2016 at Churchill College, Cambridge. Hear inspiring stories and insights from industrial-academic collaborations and thought leaders as well as presentations on the latest doctoral research in industrial sustainability. [more]

Leading organizations recognize that sustainability is no longer a problem to be minimised but an opportunity for value creation. This two-day Cambridge course will give you the tools to identify these opportunities and the ability to design and develop a comprehensive action plan to implement sustainable change in your business. The course is led by Prof Steve Evans and Dr Doroteya Vladimirova of the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) in collaboration with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). [more]

In March Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) released a second white paper with findings from its year long industry research partnership with Cranfield University.  The paper, 'Sustainable Manufacturing for the Future, The journey to 2050: research on the vision and pathways for sustainability in the food and drink industry in Great Britain’ offers a picture of what the factory of the future may look like in Great Britain. Five pathways to achieve a more sustainable manufacturing industry by 2050 are presented. [more]

Join us on 6 July (the day before the Centre's annual conference) for a dynamic afternoon at the High-Value Business Models Symposium. This new initiative will provide a platform for social start-ups and entrepreneurs to explore future directions. We will bring together change makers and explorers to find new business opportunities and apply new lenses to tackle challenges faced by diverse industries in an interconnected world. The Symposium, hosted by the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge, will be led by Dr Doroteya Vladimirova. [more]

The Manufacturing Commission’s inquiry report, 'Industrial Evolution: Making British Manufacturing Sustainable', which was launched in Parliament last October continues to make an impact on industrial policy. The report has been copied and pushed into two EC Directorates and the Peruvian government. The report is also directly informing Innovate UK’s 2016 resource efficiency strategy. You can read the full report here.

The Centre for Industrial Sustainability has recently run a pilot programme to bring sixth form students into factories to look for potential resource efficiency improvements. Collaborators for the pilot include TYF, EEF Wales and doctoral researchers and Eng D students from Warwick and Cardiff MET, in addition to researchers and staff from the University of Cambridge. The aim of the programme is to raise awareness of and interest in manufacturing engineering and issues of sustainability in schools, while helping factories uncover opportunities to identify waste. [more]

Cranfield doctoral researcher Serhan Alshammari presented his reverse logistics maturity model at the EMF CE100 acceleration workshop on 27 April in Paris. The model was developed in collaboration with DPDHL and CE100 member companies. Serhan and Prof Peter Ball have also prepared a white paper on the model, 'Waste not, want not. Capturing the value of the Circular Economy through reverse logistics, an introduction to the Reverse Logistics Maturity Model” which is published with EMF CE100. The paper is available for download here.  You can read a DPDHL blog about the model here.

The ‘digital revolution’: everyone is talking about it but what does it really mean for manufacturers and policymakers? The opening session at the IfM Briefing Day will address some of the key challenges and opportunities presented by digitalisation, looking at how current research is informing national R&D priorities and transforming factories, supply chains and service-based business models. Following sessions will include an overview of the IfM’s other main research projects and examples of how our research has been applied with industry and government – along with opportunities for collaboration. [more]

Dr Doroteya Vladimirova discusses the Cambridge Value Mapping Tool in Issue 5 of the IfM Review. Read the full article here. Also included in this issue are articles on Strategic Approaches to Asset Management, Inkjet printing and Fluid Engineering, and Turning Research into Business Tools. The IfM Review highlights some of the research taking place at the Institute for Manufacturing, Cambridge. It is published twice a year.

Most read article in the IfM Review
You can read about sustainable business models research at the IfM in New Business Models for a Sustainable Future, an article by Dr Doroteya Vladimirova published in Issue 2 of the IfM Review. This article has sustained its position of the most read article of all IfM Review articles published to date.

The Centre delivers workshops to a diverse group of organisations using our suite of sustainable business tools.  A few examples from the past few months are below.

With start-ups

Ian Bamford and Dr Maria Holgado held a workshop for start-ups at the Central Research Laboratory (CRL) in Middlesex using two Centre business tools. Described as an 'invaluable exercise' and 'a real eye opener for many', the workshops allowed the start-ups to identify priority areas to develop and opportunities to improve social, environmental, and economic benefits and interconnections throughout the lifetime of the product. The companies were able to take away their completed tool as a reference for advancing their business model innovations. Read the blog here.

With schools

As part of the Redress program with M&S Ian Bamford and Dr Curie Park worked with the schools service provider Edcomms to run 2 workshops using the Cambridge Value Mapping Tool. These involved working with teachers, parents and school children to explore the potential value that schools might derive from engaging in proposed future projects with the UK retailer. All the parties commented on how the tools helped to provide a strong framework for wide ranging inputs from a very diverse audience.

With construction

In February, the Construction Products Association ran the Cambridge Value Mapping Tool with its senior leadership team to assess the current plans for new services development.

With iema

The Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment (iema) are undergoing a considerable reworking of their membership offerings, and as a longstanding member of the Centre, asked if we could provide any assistance. Ian Bamford and Laure Dodin identified that the Cambridge Business Model Tools would provide a valuable analysis of the current and future plans to deliver value to the membership. [more]

If you have an interest in sustainability and / or innovation, and believe in the ‘power of the many’ to solve the complex sustainability challenges we all face, join this series of text-based online conversations led by Cranfield University and hosted by GlobeScan on Wednesday 25th May. More information here.

Ian Bamford discusses industry academic partnerships in Vodafone’s Your Ready Business blog which was later published in The Times on Monday 15 February. Read the blog here. 

The Sustainable Design and Manufacturing Conference (SDM'16) took place on 4-6 April in Chania, Greece. Centre researchers were out in full force with Peter Ball as track chair for the Sustainable Manufacturing Processes and Technology session, Leila Sheldrick as track chair for Sustainable Design, Innovation and Services session and Nancy Bocken as track chair for the session on Decision Support for Sustainability. [more]

Earlier this year, York Management School students worked with British Glass, the UK trade association for the glass industry, on strategies for competitiveness as part of their Business Consulting Projects module. With a little over six weeks to carry out the work, the group analysed data from glass manufacturers, recyclers as well as accessing public documents to make a number of recommendations on competitiveness. One area they explored in depth was the relationship between the glass industry and customers and the role of awareness and education in reducing overall environmental impact. The work examined the different potential audiences from industrial customers through to consumers.

AIMAN, the Italian Maintenance Association, has granted to the PhD thesis of Dr Maria Holgado a mention of “Thesis of Excellence” for its content quality and its contribution to the development of the maintenance culture. It was, therefore, selected as the Italian candidate for the European level award, the EFNMS Excellence Award 2016 for Ph.D. thesis in Maintenance. This European award aims to promote, encourage and motivate the theoretical and applied research and applications of research outcomes in the areas of Maintenance Engineering and Management in European Universities and Research Institutes. Congratulations Maria!

Kaimei Zhang, a final year student from the IfM’s Manufacturing Engineering Tripos (MET) kicked-off her long project at the Centre. In the next six weeks, Kaimei will be investigating the challenges arising from the transformation towards continuous manufacturing, and the implications of the shift from batch to continuous manufacturing on business models in the process industries. If you are interested to engage with this study, please contact Dr Doroteya Vladimirova at dkv21@cam.ac.uk.

A new book Circular Business: Collaborate and Circulate was published in March. The book co-authored by Senior Research Associate, Dr Nancy Bocken, explains how you can establish a successful circular business. The Book aims to close the gap between theory and practice in the circular economy. [more]

Don't miss Peter Ball speaking on ‘Engaging with suppliers to adopt your sustainability practices’ during the Sustainability in your supply chain session of the Resource Efficiency seminar on 18th May at Edie Live. More information here.

Cranfield doctoral researcher Aanand Davé has recently started work at the Lanner Group. Lanner is a business process software developer, and strategic modelling consultancy. Aanand whose research is in the area of factory operational eco-efficiency, spent the last 3 years working closely with Lanner, and used their WITNESS software in support of his research. He has now started work as a simulation consultant, with a specialist focus on Simulation 3D visualisations and virtual reality environments.

The 2016 National Manufacturing Debate, Accelerating UK Manufacturing Growth, will take place on 25 May 2016 at Cranfield University. Now into its seventh successful year, this free event brings together manufacturing professionals from a range of sectors to discuss and debate current challenges in the industry, and encourage networking and collaboration across the sector to enable continued and long-term growth. For more information and to register your place visit www.national-manufacturing-debate.org.uk.

The Centre for Industrial Sustainability and industrial partner Altro shared a stand at the Resource/Ecobuild event in early March. Resource is a 3 day event in conjunction with EcoBuild where professionals share learning and explore opportunities to be circular and resource efficient. The Centre delivered two workshops during the event: ‘Sustainable business model innovation: challenges and opportunities’ led by Dr Doroteya Vladimirova and ‘Eco-efficiency and practice maturity in manufacturing – a self-assessment tool’ led by Lampros Litos, also of Altro Ltd. Steve Evans spoke on ‘Modelling the business case for resource efficient practice - when do the sums add up to think differently about materials lifecycles?’ in the Think Circular Conference

Centre staff entertained children and young people with 'Sustainability Games' during the Cambridge Science Festival at the Institute for Manufacturing on 19 March 2016. Children learned about manufacturing resource efficiency in the Chocolate Egg Factory Board Game and the family version of the One Thousand kWh Card Game. [more]

Many congratulations to Dr Oliver Gould and his wife Lucy on the birth of their daughter Ophelia on the 24th January! .