Commercial carpet tile manufacturer Desso announced it has joined forces with De Lage Landen to offer leasing to its customers as an alternative to owning for purposes of recycling the product at the end of its useful life.

In the long term, the shift to the circular economy, in which goods are made to be remade again and again, businesses will be able to unlock new wealth and put less pressure on the earth’s natural resources. One recent report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the management consultancy McKinsey, calculated that a part of the EU’s manufacturing industry could make material savings of up to $630 billion per year by moving to circular models.

One of the keys to making this change is to come up with innovative new service models, notably leasing. Instead of owning a product, customers view it as a service provided by a supplier, who will then take back the product at the end of its life for recycling.

“Desso has reached a number of milestones in recent years including the Cradle to Cradle certification of 90% of its commercial carpet tiles and the development of DESSO EcoBase, a C2C Silver Certified carpet tile backing of which the polyolefin based layer is fully and safely recyclable in our own production system,” says Alexander Collot d’Escury, CEO Desso. “Now with help from De Lage Landen we are starting to take the next step in offering leasing, which will offer a full service to our customers including installation, cleaning, maintenance and eventually removal, which will also make it easier for us to take our goods back after its use and close the loop.”

Since 2008, Desso has been developing a Take Back system, supported by its Refinity separation technique that both enables the company to take back carpets from its competitors as well as its own customers and separate the yarn and other fibers from the backing producing two main material stream which both can be recycled.

“We are, of course, delighted to join forces with Desso in this groundbreaking move towards the circular economy. This tailor made, full service lease solution fits perfectly in our aim to further develop our concept of life cycle asset management: reducing waste and recycling raw materials by reusing predesigned parts in the value chain. In the long run, we hope to see service models like this grow and shift the world economy to a much more innovative and sustainable position, enabling economic growth to take place within the means of the planet,” says Milko Wijckmans, president of De Lage Landen Financial Solutions. “We are also thrilled that a company in the Netherlands is taking the lead in this way.”

Desso is a global carpets, carpet tiles and sport pitches company, active in more than 100 countries. Desso products are supplied to corporate offices, education, healthcare, government, homes and also hotels, cruise liners and airlines.