International Upcycling Research Network

升级回收是指利用使用过的或废弃的产品、组件和材料的材料工艺和创新，以创造比组成元素更高质量或价值的产品。这是一个包含“创造性”或“先进”形式的概念，包括维修、再利用、重新利用、翻新、升级、重新设计、重制、再制造、回收等等。升级回收提高了资源效率，减少了固体废物和用原始材料加工制造过程中的工业能耗，并创造了新的就业机会。它鼓励消费者的可持续行为，这也有助于个人省钱和心理健康。在当前冠状病毒大流行的情况下，升级回收的经济和社会效益尤其值得注意，因为许多人经历了越来越多的经济困难和心理健康状况不佳。然而，尽管有预期的好处，升级回收仍然是一种利基做法。从利基到主流实践可以实现升级回收的全部潜力。在实现更可持续的生产和消费系统的压力越来越大的情况下，升级回收是一个及时的回应，因为它可以促进以材料循环为基础的经济，取代目前的获取、制造、使用和处置的线性经济。最近在升级回收方面的出版物、倡议和企业的增加显示了学术界和工业界越来越大的兴趣。然而，研究仍处于萌芽阶段，缺乏多行业、多学科或国际成果（Sung et al., 2021）。为了实现增长，需要跨行业、跨学科和跨国家发展升级回收理论和实践。拟议中的“国际升级回收研究网络”将促进这种跨行业、跨学科和国际研究。了解全球升级回收价值链中相互关联和自我强化的挑战对于扩大全球升级回收至关重要。例如，消费者对升级产品的负面看法影响了需求，从而影响了价格，从而影响了销售，导致有限的市场，导致很少有高质量的产品，这反过来影响了消费者对升级产品的负面看法。多个这样的循环在价值链中相互作用（Singh et al., 2019）。现有的升级回收研究大多是针对特定行业和国家的（例如，Cumming, 2017； Singh等人，2019），影响其成功的因素在不同行业和国家是否相同，这在很大程度上是未知的，因此很难确定哪些挑战最好先解决，以便有效地扩大升级回收。该网络最初的重点将是通过与受邀的全球专家合作调查来解决这一知识差距。

Upcycling refers to material processes and innovations of utilising used or waste products, components and materials in order to create a product of higher quality or value than the compositional elements. It is an umbrella concept incorporating 'creative' or 'advanced' forms of repair, reuse, repurpose, refurbishment, upgrade, redesign, remake, remanufacture, recycling and more. Upcycling increases resource efficiency, reduces solid waste and the industrial energy consumption involved in processing and manufacturing with virgin materials, and creates new job opportunities. It encourages consumers' sustainable behaviour, which also contributes to individuals' money-saving and psychological wellbeing. The economic and social benefits of upcycling are especially noteworthy in the current Coronavirus pandemic situation with increasing financial difficulties and poor psychological wellbeing experienced by many people. Yet, despite the anticipated benefits, upcycling remains a niche practice. Moving from a niche to a mainstream practice could realise the full potential of upcycling. Under the increasing pressure to achieve a more sustainable system of production and consumption, upcycling is a timely response as it could facilitate an economy based on material circularity, in place of the current linear economy of take, make, use and dispose. The recent increase in publications, initiatives and businesses in upcycling shows growing academic and industrial interest. Research, however, is still embryonic, lacking multiple-industry, multidisciplinary or international results (Sung et al., 2021). Development of upcycling theory and practices across industries, disciplines and countries is required for growth. The proposed 'International Upcycling Research Network' will facilitate such cross-industry, cross-discipline, and international research. Understanding interrelated and self-reinforcing challenges in the global upcycling value chain is critical particularly for scaling up global upcycling. For example, consumers' negative perception of upcycled products affects the demand which affects price and therefore sales, leading to a limited market resulting in few available good-quality products that feed back into consumers' adverse perception of upcycled goods. Multiple such loops are interacting with each other in the value chain (Singh et al., 2019). Existing studies of upcycling are mostly industry and country specific (e.g. Cumming, 2017; Singh et al., 2019) and whether the factors impacting on its success are the same across industries and countries is largely unknown, making it difficult to establish which challenges are best addressed first in order to scale up upcycling effectively. The initial focus of the network will be addressing this knowledge gap by collaborative investigation with the invited global experts.