A virtuous circle

良性循环
Battery-makers are powering a circular economy
电池制造商正在驱动循环经济
“Gigafactories” are being designed to recycle raw materials
“超级工厂”的设计将回收利用原材料
MANUFACTURING IS A one-way business. Raw materials go into a factory and
finished products come out. Once those goods are sold, producers (initial guarantees
apart) usually wash their hands of them. Certainly they do not worry, unless
compelled to by law, about how the products are disposed of. Most are burnt or rot in
landfill, which pollutes the planet. In only 50 years the world’s consumption of raw
materials has nearly quadrupled, to more than 100bn tonnes, according to the latest
Circularity Gap Report from the World Economic Forum. Less than 9% of this is
reused, resulting in a big waste of materials.
制造业是门单向的生意。原材料进厂，成品出厂。一旦商品售出，生产商（提
供初始质保的除外）通常就撒手不管了。它们自然也不担心产品在废弃后是如
何被处理掉的，除非有法律强制它们过问这件事。大多数产品最后都被焚烧或
在垃圾填埋场里烂掉，污染地球。世界经济论坛（ World Economic Forum）发
布的最新《循环缺口报告》（Circularity Gap Report）显示，在短短 50 年间，
全球原材料消费增长了近三倍，达到逾 1000 亿吨。其中只有不到 9%被重复利
用，这造成了巨大的材料浪费。
Industry does talk about sustainability and recycling, but much of that is
greenwashing intended to improve brand images. Yet in the circular economy the
bottom line, too, can benefit from greenery. This is especially so in the case of
“gigafactories”, so called because their output of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs)
is measured in gigawatt hours (GWh).
工业界确实在谈论可持续性和回收利用，但大部分实则是漂绿，为的是改善品
牌形象。但是，如果投身循环经济，企业的盈利状况也可以从环保举措中获益。
“超级工厂”尤其如此。之所以叫这个名字，是因为它们的电动汽车电池产出
是以吉瓦时（GWh）的规模来衡量的。
Every carmaking country wants gigafactories. Batteries are the costliest part of an EV,
so making them is lucrative. But they contain materials such as lithium, cobalt,
manganese and nickel that are pricey and can be hard to obtain. Supply chains are
long and complicated. Buyers risk being tarnished by their suppliers’ (or suppliers’
suppliers’) poor environmental and labour standards. Reusing materials makes sense.
每个汽车制造国都想要超级工厂。电池是电动汽车中最昂贵的部分，所以制造
电池利润丰厚。但它们含有的锂、钴、锰和镍等材料昂贵且难以获得，电池供
应链也又长又复杂。买家的名声还有被供应商（或供应商的供应商）糟糕的环
境和劳工标准连累的风险。重复使用材料是明智之举。
Being new, most gigafactories are designed with recycling in mind from the start. The
result is a circular production process, not a linear one. The idea is that once batteries
reach the ends of their lives, they should go back to a factory, where their ingredients
can be recovered and put into new batteries.
作为一种新型工厂，大多数超级工厂从设计之初就考虑到了回收利用。由此形
成了一个循环的生产流程，而不是线性的。其理念是一旦电池到了使用寿命的
尽头，就应该送回工厂，在那里它们的成分可以被回收并用于新电池。
Gigafactories are not yet exemplars of the circular economy, but they are laying the
foundations. Northvolt, a Swedish battery-maker, aims by 2030 to produce 150GWh
of batteries—enough to power some 2m EVs—from the three gigafactories it is
completing. By then, around half its raw materials should come from recycling old
batteries. Northvolt is not alone. Using recycling, renewable power and other
measures, CATL—a Chinese firm and the world’s biggest producer of EV batteries—
thinks it should eventually be possible to shrink the carbon footprint of a battery
towards zero.
超级工厂还不是循环经济的典范，但它们正在奠定基础。瑞典电池制造商
Northvolt 定下目标，要到 2030 年从它正在建设的三个超级工厂中生产 150 吉瓦
时的电池，足以为大约 200 万辆电动汽车提供动力。到那时，它应该会有大约
一半的原材料来自回收旧电池。Northvolt 并不是孤例。世界上最大的电动车电
池生产商中国公司宁德时代认为，通过回收利用、使用可再生能源和其他措施，
它最终应该能将电池的碳足迹减少到零。
Carmakers such as the Renault Group and Stellantis, owner of brands that include
Fiat, Chrysler and Peugeot (and whose big shareholder, Exor, also owns a stake in The
Economist’s parent company), are both setting up circular-economy businesses. This
is not just for batteries, but also for repairing and reconditioning parts and vehicles.
Each of these operations will, bosses hope, have annual revenues of more than €2bn
($2bn) by the end of the decade, and be profitable. Renault reckons around 85% of a
car is recyclable, but only 20-30% of the materials in new vehicles are recycled, often
from other goods. Circular manufacturing would greatly increase that share.
汽车制造商如雷诺集团和拥有菲亚特、克莱斯勒和标致等品牌的斯特兰蒂斯
（Stellantis，其大股东 Exor 也持有本刊母公司的股份）都在建立循环经济业务，
不仅涉及电池，还有零部件和车辆的维修和翻新。老板们希望，到 2030 年前，
每项业务的年收入都将超过 20 亿欧元（20 亿美元），并实现盈利。雷诺估计一
辆汽车有 85%的部分可以回收，但目前一辆新车只有 20%到 30%的部分使用了
回收材料，通常来自其他物品。循环制造将大幅增加这一比例。
Could other industries do something similar? Fast fashion is a notoriously wasteful
business in which little-worn clothes are burnt or dumped. America’s Environmental
Protection Agency estimates that the recycling rate for clothing and footwear is just
13%. A big part of the reason is the use of mixed textiles, which are hard to recycle.
Clothing companies could, like gigafactories, re-engineer their processes to employ
fibres that are easier to handle. Consumer electronics is another business that creates
heaps of waste, despite electronic circuits containing precious materials such as gold
and silver, and electric motors being made from rare-earth metals like neodymium and
dysprosium. Fortunes could yet be made in the urban mining of last year’s gadgets
and yesterday’s togs.
其他行业是否可能做类似的事情？快时尚业出了名地浪费，会把没怎么穿过的
衣服烧掉或扔掉。美国环境保护署估计服装和鞋类的回收率只有 13%。很大一
部分原因是它们使用的是混合纺织品，难以回收。服装公司或许可以像超级工
厂那样重新设计生产流程，改用更容易处理的纤维。另一个产生大量废弃物的
行业是消费电子品，尽管电子电路含有金银等贵重材料，而电动马达由钕和镝
等稀土金属制成。在城市里淘一淘过时的小型电子设备和旧衣服仍有可能大赚
一笔。