Circular Economy Insights

♻️ Packaging is one of the most waste-generating systems on the planet - where are all the startups building scalable, sustainable alternatives? The 2025 Top Tier Impact infographic on packaging startups in the circular economy maps out five areas redefining how we package goods across industries: 1/ Reusable systems 2/ Cellulose-based materials 3/ Seaweed packaging 4/ Mycelium packaging 5/ Other Biobased & upcycled materials From edible films to returnable grocery logistics, these 160+ startups are moving beyond recycling—toward regenerative design, closed-loop supply chains, and planet-compatible materials. 🌍 Packaging accounts for more than 141 million tons of global waste each year. Transforming this system is not optional. 👉 You can find the high-res infographic and full list of startups on our website: https://lnkd.in/gTsYYJ4w Who are we still missing? Tag them in the comments below! #circulareconomy #sustainablepackaging #zerowaste

IKEA Circular Value Chain Model 🌍 IKEA offers a clear example of how circularity can be embedded across a global value chain. Its approach moves beyond product-level improvements to a systemic shift in how materials are sourced, products are designed, services are structured, and end-of-life is managed. At the design stage, IKEA applies circular principles to ensure that products can be reused, repaired, remanufactured, or recycled. Internal guidelines and evaluation tools help teams integrate these requirements consistently across categories, aiming to extend product life and reduce waste. Materials are a major focus, as they account for a significant share of the company's overall environmental footprint. IKEA is increasing the use of renewable and recycled inputs and testing alternative materials to reduce dependency on virgin resources and fossil-based components. The company is also scaling services that enable customers to participate in circular practices. This includes expanding buy-back programs, resale initiatives, and spare parts availability, as well as improving product designs to simplify disassembly and repair. To support broader change, IKEA is involved in policy dialogue and cross-sector collaboration. Through its partnerships and platforms, the company is contributing to discussions on harmonized standards, recycled material markets, and waste infrastructure. As part of its long-term strategy, IKEA recently committed significant capital through its investment arm to strengthen recycling capabilities across key materials such as plastics, textiles, wood, and mattresses. This aims to address structural barriers and accelerate access to quality secondary materials. These investments are already supporting the development of closed-loop systems in several markets, while also contributing to emissions reductions and supply chain resilience. The focus is on building scalable infrastructure that aligns with IKEA’s circularity and climate goals. The IKEA Circular Value Chain Model reflects a strategic shift from ambition to execution. It provides a practical framework for operationalizing circularity at scale, grounded in product design, material innovation, customer engagement, and long-term investment. #sustainability #business #sustainable #esg

Our report Circular Economy Outlook 2024 for the Nordics is now published: a comprehensive survey of circular activity and maturity among listed companies in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden!   Business opportunities and reduction of climate emissions are two of the main driving forces for circular conversion among listed companies in the Nordics.   WHAT YOU MEASURE GET DONE. Almost all companies claim to have integrated circularity to some extent in their business strategy. 42% have defined a goal for at least one circular strategy but less than a third measure performance and progress. Circular strategies with defined goals that are measured are much more likely to be implemented than those without. Simply put: what gets measured gets done!   THE CIRCULAR PURCHASING PARADOX. Many companies feel stuck in linear business models. The biggest obstacle cited is a perceived lack of demand: the companies' customers do not make circular demands. Ironically, only a small proportion of companies indicate that they themselves impose circular requirements on suppliers in all or most purchases. A fifth of the companies set circular requirements in their purchases only if customers or authorities require it.   CIRCULAR COMPETITION IS EXPECTED. The circular transformation of companies is gaining momentum. 69% of companies believe that their competitors will develop significant circular capabilities in the coming years.   CIRCULAR BUSINESS INDEX. The report introduces a completely new method for measuring circular activity in companies: the circular business index. This is a leading indicator for the scope of the companies' joint expected efforts in the short and medium term. It is expressed as a percentage with a maximum value of 100%. Results? The circular business index for Nordic listed companies is 21%. It indicates a low expected effect and a significant room for improvement. The project has been led by Cradlenet and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden in collaboration with the Danish Technological Institute, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre and VTT. The report is financed and supported by: Sirk Norge, Avfall Sverige, Foxway Group, Uudenmaan kiertotalouslaakso / Helsinki-Uusimaa Circular Hub Circular Valley, Håll Sverige Rent, Industriens Fond, Nordic Circular Hotspot, Nordic Innovation, Ragn-Sells, RE:Source-SIP, Skanska Sverige, Södra, Teknikföretagen and Återvinningsindustrierna Michel Bajuk Marcus Linder Sofia Sundström Josefina Sallén Emelie Langemyr Eriksen Karsten Frøhlich Hougaard Annu Markkula Michael Hanf #circulareconomy #zerowaste #sustainability #Mordic

ISO 59000 is the new global framework for the circular economy, published in 2024, and connects to #procurement and #supply chain professionals as it establishes the first internationally agreed definitions, principles, and implementation guidance for transitioning from linear to #circular value chains. In essence it enables and creates; 🌏 Creates a shared global definition of circularity — reducing ambiguity when engaging suppliers across markets. 🌉 Supports compliance with emerging regulations (e.g., EU ecodesign, packaging, resource traceability). 📍 Enables circular procurement by defining principles such as systems thinking, value creation, value sharing, resource management, and traceability. 🧑💻 Improves supplier evaluation through consistent terminology and performance expectations. 💱 Supports redesign of value networks, including remanufacturing, reuse, repair, and industrial symbiosis. ISO 59004: Establishes the six circular principles and a four‑stage implementation framework—useful for policy, category strategies, and supplier requirements. ISO 59010: Helps procurement reshape supply chains toward circular models (e.g., product‑as‑a‑service, reverse logistics). ISO 59014: Provides metrics and assessment approaches for supplier performance, tenders, and contract management. KEY SUGGESTED ACTIONS: ➖ Align procurement policies with the six circular principles. ➖ Update specifications to include durability, repairability, reusability, and traceability requirements. ➖ Engage suppliers using the shared vocabulary and frameworks in ISO 59004. ➖ Integrate circularity metrics (ISO 59020) into evaluation and contract management. ➖ Map value networks to identify opportunities for reuse, remanufacturing, and reverse flows (ISO 59010). FEEL FREE TO SHARE AND COMMENT: Kelly Barner Kelly Hobson Ben Farrell MBE Dr Adam Read MBE Chris McCann MSc MCIPS (Chrtd.) FRSA NSc Jyoti Mishra Annalisha Noel Anthony Hanley MBA Anthony Greig BSc MBA Iván-Alonzo Gaviria M. ∴ Karl Green Anthony Flynn Tom Mills Inma V. Regine PAHMER Dr Howard Price PhD FRSA MSc DMS MCIPS Chartered Phil Broughton Ankit Aggarwal Dr. Raji Sivaraman, PMI-ACP, PMP, PMO-CP™, GPM-b™ Ben Stamp Dr Deepak Arunachalam Eirini Etoimou, MSc, MBA LS, FISEP, MICW Melissa Demartini, PhD Marc Hutchinson FCIPS CEng EMBA Jim Goodhead, FCIPS, Supply Chain, CPO, Procurement Director, Interim Sarah-Jane Ellis BA(Hons) MBA FCIPS Chartered Nina Bomberg

Starting today and over the next few months I will be sharing stories of successful entrepreneurs from the South of India who have inspired me. These stories will enthuse more people to take up entrepreneurship and help the country progress at a faster pace. Abhay means Fearless. He is a person I have known for nearly a quarter century—an entrepreneur who has pioneered multiple online businesses, a professional who has been an inspiration to me and a friend who has been a bedrock of support to me. I first met Abhay way back in the year 2000. He was then running Malamall(dot)com, an online business store, and had bought some products from my customized gifting company. Malamall was arguably India’s first e-commerce company, at least a decade before Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm or Swiggy made their active entry into the Indian e-commerce marketplace. Abhay then went on to launch Martjack in 2007, probably India’s first SAAS company. Martjack built retail storefronts, websites and e-commerce frameworks for thousands of businesses across India and the world, including well-known names like Walmart, Pizza Hut & Hindustan Unilever. An interesting facet is that Abhay raised Rs 42 crores in equity capital from 86 individual investors living in 22 cities across 11 countries. All this in 100 months, and the best part is that not even one of the 86 investors was known to him beforehand. Eventually, Martjack was acquired in 2015 by Capillary Technologies for around US $50 million. Some of the initial investors in Martjack got a 40X return. I saw Abhay at his best between 2000 and 2015. It was an everyday survival story for him, and his positive attitude and never-say-die approach to life went on to build his character for life. He is one friend who has zero negative energy and sincerely believes that nothing is impossible if we apply our minds to it. Abhay is now scaling Recykal.com, India’s first sustainable circular economy company, which he set up in 2016. Recykal has a blue-chip portfolio of clients, including Samsung, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, Dabur, Marico & Ceat. Abhay’s vision for Recykal is to convert 10% of India’s waste into circularity. Recykal is also partnering with several state governments in India on their circular economy initiatives. An international foray and an IPO are in the offing within 2-3 years. Recykal has secured investments of over US $40 million from PE firms like Morgan Stanley and Circulate Capital, as well as family offices of Ranjan Pai, Murugappa Group’s Vellayan, & Ajay Parekh of Pidilite. I must confess that it was Abhay who convinced me that going the IPO route was much better than the PE route. He felt that Zaggle had the potential to scale faster and bigger in the coming years and that value creation is possible only when there is a wider dispersion of equity capital. To me, Abhay represents the aspirations of the new generation: Think Digital. Think innovative businesses. Orchestrate a success story. Repeat.

🔁 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗨𝘀: 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗶𝗿𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗛𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗟𝗼𝘄 📉 For the eighth year in a row, global recycling rates have dropped. Just 6.9% of the 106 billion tonnes of materials used annually now come from recycled sources, according to Circle Economy new report. The problem? We’re not just failing to recycle—we're consuming faster than ever. Key findings from the report: 🔻Circularity is falling: Secondary materials dropped from 7.2% (2018) to 6.9% (2021) 🏗️ Virgin material use is soaring: Extraction has tripled in 50 years, now topping 100 billion tonnes 🧱 18% of materials go straight to landfill—a major untapped circular opportunity 🌍 Massive inequality: High-income countries consume 6× more per person than low-income ones 📉 Even perfect recycling wouldn’t solve it: At best, we’d hit ~25%—consumption itself must shrink The report calls for: - Global targets for material use and circularity - Stronger policies to curb virgin resource extraction - A new International Materials Agency to coordinate global efforts This is a wake-up call for businesses, governments, and individuals alike. We can’t recycle our way out of this crisis—we need systemic, circular transformation across value chains. 💡 What are your ideas and thoughts about how we can tackle this crisis? https://lnkd.in/exqy7sSu #CircularEconomy #Sustainability #Recycling #MaterialUse #ClimateAction #CGR2025 #SystemsChange

The traditional GTM model is broken. Most teams still operate in a straight line: Marketing → Sales → Customer Success → done. That model creates silos, bad handoffs, and a distorted view of who your best customers actually are. The future is circular: Marketing feeds Sales > Sales passes to Success > Success informs Product > Product feeds back into Marketing… I wish I could write circularly on Linkedin! Each loop gets smarter, tighter, and more aligned. When we closed the loop, we found something painful: about 10% of our customers (50 companies) weren’t the right fit. Great logos. Wrong fit. We had the hard conversations and even recommended competitors who could serve them better. Why? Because the wrong customers drain everyone: -Teams chase the wrong problems -The roadmap gets muddled -And those customers rarely succeed anyway The best part? With AI and lookalike modeling from your happiest customers, you uncover patterns about who really thrives with your solution (patterns you’d never see in a linear model). Curious how others are tackling this: #RevOps

#circular #fashion is dependent on lots of things working, all at once. Adoption of different business models (repair, reuse, rental), recycling, adoption of innovative materials and technology, funding of new infrastructure, take back and collection mandates, … Though brands including H&M Group, adidas and Crocs and others have made bold commitments to circularity, financial obstacles (see gross margin targets) and a lack of consumer uptake are pushing back. Consider: 👗 Rental paragons Rent The Runway and StitchFix are struggling. Rent the Runway’s market cap is down 97% since its IPO. It has expended more than $500M of venture funding. Stitchfix is also down 97% from its peak valuation. At the same time, there is no evidence that growing rental and second hand sales are slowing purchases of new fashion items (see article in the The Wall Street Journal on 1.14 "Renting Clothes Was Supposed to Be the Future of Fashion. Then Shoppers Got Bored"). .  ♻️Dramatic increases in capacity for virgin #plastics have led to a glut and price decreases. Ethylene capacity rose nearly 42mn tonnes last year compared with 2019, while global demand grew by only about 14mn tonnes. As a result, the price of virgin plastic is “so low that its recycled alternative has become uneconomical to use.” In a system where financial objectives trump #sustainability goals, the economics of linear vs. circular remain an insurmountable challenge. Maxine Bédat Livia Firth Katrin Ley Leslie Johnston Evan Wiener Matt Powell Sarah Kent Brett Mathews Lutz Walter Rachel Arthur Sean Cady Crispin Argento💙💛🕊✌🏽 Alden Wicker Vanessa Barboni Hallik Eric Liedtke Yuly Fuentes-Medel Ph.D. Bronwen Foster-Butler Michael Beutler #sustainablefashion #retailinnovation https://lnkd.in/ddjhGtU8

The Circularity Index 2026 is out, and it offers one of the clearest snapshots of where companies actually are on circularity ♻️ The Index, published by Indeed Innovation, analyses how the 40 largest publicly listed companies in Germany (the DAX40) are integrating circular economy principles into their goals, strategies and business models. It’s not global, but it’s a useful indicator of where major European industry stands. A few things stood out: - 47.5 percent of companies have zero quantitative circularity targets. - Nearly half of all measurable goals sit in energy and water, because these are already established sustainability metrics. Circularity-specific areas remain largely untouched. - Only four quantitative goals were set across the entire 10R value retention framework. None for repair, refurbish or remanufacturing. - Most reported “achievements” still relate to renewable energy rather than circular loops, design, recovery or lifetime extension. - Yet companies that do invest seriously in circularity already see new revenue streams, supply chain resilience and competitive gains. And for the circular jobs landscape, the message is clear. The next wave of skills won’t sit in broad sustainability roles but in: - circular product design - reverse logistics and recovery - refurbishment and remanufacturing - service-based and take-back models - material tracking and digital passports - circular supply chain strategy Read it here: https://lnkd.in/edcCqVFC

♻️ 𝗖𝗶𝗿𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹. For years we’ve told brands to 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘺𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺. Now, it’s about to cost them if they don’t. 💰 From now, UK producers will start paying 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗘𝗣𝗥 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝘀 (higher for “red” non-recyclable formats, lower for “green” ones). In France, Citeo’𝘀 𝗲𝗰𝗼-𝗺𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 already hits PVC and carbon-black plastics with up to a 𝟭𝟬% 𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘁𝘆, while rewarding recycled content and reuse. And the 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗮𝘅 (£223.69 / tonne for packs with <30% recycled content) has pushed recycled-resin demand up 𝟳% 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮. Design choices are starting to carry real costs. Circular design is finally being rewarded. ⚙️ But let’s be honest, design rules only work if the system can keep up. Around ~𝟴𝟬% 𝗼𝗳 𝗨𝗞 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗹𝘀 still don’t collect films weekly. FlexCollect trials show 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝟰𝟬% 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟴𝟱%, though capture rates remain lower as households adapt and infrastructure scales. Without matching collection and processing capacity, design progress risks outpacing the system. 🔍 And yet, small design tweaks make huge differences: 🟢 Switching to mono-PE film can boost recyclate yield by ~𝟮𝟱% ⚫ Removing carbon-black makes plastics visible to NIR sorters >𝟵𝟬% 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 🔵 Ditching full-body shrink sleeves can reduce PET sorting errors 𝗯𝘆 𝟲𝟬% Circular design isn’t about revolution — it’s about engineering out the barriers one label, pigment and adhesive at a time. 🌍 Ultimately, circular design is 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻. Nearly 𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗳 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴’𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁 comes from making virgin materials. Get design right at the start and you cut emissions before recycling even begins. Across Europe, better packaging design could cut 𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴-𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗚𝗛𝗚 𝗲𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗯𝘆 (𝟮𝟱–𝟯𝟬%) 𝗯𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟯𝟬. 💬 The question is no longer 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 we design for circularity, 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰? What design change do you think will make the biggest impact by 2030? (Economics, policy, or consumer pressure?) If you found this useful, give it a 👍, share it with your network, or follow me for more circular-economy and packaging insights. #CircularDesign #PackagingInnovation #DesignForRecyclability #ExtendedProducerResponsibility #CircularEconomy #PackagingPolicy #Sustainability #UKPackagingPact