You may have asked yourself: what does Environmental Social Governance have to do with Harry Potter? The answer is in the Deathly Hallows.

To truly grasp how the power of internet-connected devices that make up the internet of things (IoT) relates to sustainability, one simply needs to look at the Deathly Hallows symbol:

The triangle represents the triple bottom line of People, Planet, and Profits that businesses strive for; the circle represents the circular economy that serves as the vehicle to achieving those ends equally; and the line represents the interconnected devices we call the IoT.

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but the point is that all three of these things are, well, interconnected. Let’s first consider how a circular economy and the triple bottom line coincide and then introduce the newer element of IoT in a later post.

The triple Lutz of Environmental Social Governance

When it comes to reaching the triple bottom line, the name of the game is efficiency. After all, that’s what sustainability really is: being efficient with resources and processes. Of course, this kind of efficiency generally lends itself to businesses being better for people and profits alike. But what about the planet? Throw in that element and the story requires more than merely increasing the efficient use of resources.

The linear economy is, until recently, all we have known as a post-industrial society. And even this “take, make, dispose” model (as Mark Esposito of GreenBiz summarizes it) can still be made more efficient. Heck, through improved recycling techniques and thoughtful repurposing, anyone can manage waste in a more efficient manner. But to really achieve business to the betterment of the planet? That is where the circle comes in.

‘Reduce through reuse’ is the name of the game

Circular economy is the reduction of resource productivity, or minimizing the exhaustive use of source materials. This is done by routing disposed material back into the source to feed production, like a loop. Hence: circular. Things like: better, more material-specific recycling processes or more comprehensive asset management programs help streamline waste into source material.

Pushing businesses to be more circular in how they operate can pull that third bottom line of “Planet” into sharp focus. It’s no surprise that our world’s resources are dwindling at an alarming rate, and the methods to extract those resources are even worse for the planet, so any way we can corporately reduce the need for source material to be obtained unsustainably, the better.

Bringing it a little closer to home, we can see examples of this linear damage in the tech world. Specifically, we see this in the current run on cobalt. By effectively capturing cobalt resources back from the e-waste streams leaving this country, we could significantly reduce the ramifications of cobalt mining that tear at ethical and environmental boundaries.

Just imagine how much cobalt could be sustainably harvested from our old electronics

So, what’s the big take-away?

Only by embracing the circular economy can we efficiently address the “planet” part of the triple bottom line. If we stay in a linear economy model, even the best efficiency will still fall short of true environmental social governance. But that’s not the end of the story. In Part II we will look at how modern technology addresses this efficiency quotient in businesses.