Dutch company wants to offer a solution for material waste
27/03/2019
The Excess Materials Exchange (EME) is an Amsterdam-based organisation that believes it has found a way to turn waste into a revenue stream for companies. It was founded by Christian van Maaren, who has a background in sustainability at companies such as Shell, and Maayke Aimee Damen, who has been working on projects related to the circular economy for a number of years.
Ms van Maaren told sportstextiles that the idea for the business started as a marketplace for secondary materials, but that EME quickly realised that a “passive” marketplace would not be a good enough solution for the problem of waste.
Instead, it is building what he calls a “dating site” that actively matches up companies that have excess materials with other companies that have a need for them. This means the onus to find a partner is not on the companies themselves, rather on EME’s team of resource analysts. It is currently running a pilot programme with a number of Dutch companies.
When putting together these matches, EME shows the company that has the excess material the environmental impacts of a potential transaction on its platform. These include water and energy savings and carbon dioxide emissions reductions. The environmental impact of physically transporting the materials from one company to another is also taken into account, which means local solutions are often the best option from a sustainability point of view.
Among the waste materials it is exploring are carpets, orange peel, coffee waste, electric wiring and packaging. Each material is given what EME calls a ‘resource passport’, which gives details about its composition and its journey.
Mr van Maaren said textile waste also offers great potential for secondary material use. He added that this will be one of the company’s focus areas moving forward. He also pointed to the outdoor industry as one sector where secondary materials could find a home.
The company’s co-founder explained that matches between companies from different industries have proven to be especially beneficial, with them offering the possibility of high-value exchanges.
At this early stage of the project, the matches that are being made are being done by hand by EME’s team. In the longer term, it plans to develop a system for carrying this process out more efficiently.
EME is now preparing a report about the pilot, which it hopes to publish later this year. Its aim is to launch the platform in different areas of the world by the end of 2019.
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