Building Blocks

Companies need to build core competencies in circular design to facilitate product reuse, recycling and cascading. Circular product (and process) design requires advanced skills, information sets, and working methods. Areas important for economically successful circular design include: material selection, standardised components, designed-to-last products, design for easy end-of-life sorting, separation or reuse of products and materials, and design-for-manufacturing criteria that take into account possible useful applications of by-products and wastes.

The shift to a circular economy requires innovative business models that either replace existing ones or seize new opportunities. Companies with significant market share and capabilities along several vertical steps of the linear value chain could play a major role in circular economy innovation and driving circularity into the mainstream by leveraging their scale and vertical integration. While many new models, materials, and products will come from entrepreneurs, these brand and volume leaders can also play a critical role. Profitable circular economy business models and initiatives will inspire other players and will be copied and expanded geographically.

New and additional skills are needed for cascades and the final return of materials to the soil or back into the industrial production system. This includes delivery chain logistics, sorting, warehousing, risk management, power generation, and even molecular biology and polymer chemistry. With cost-efficient, better-quality collection and treatment systems, and effective segmentation of end-of-life products, the leakage of materials out of the system will decrease, supporting the economics of circular design.

For widespread reuse of materials and higher resource productivity to become commonplace, market mechanisms will need to play a dominant role, supported by policy makers, educational institutions and popular opinion leaders. These enablers include:

• Collaboration
• Rethinking incentives
• Providing a suitable set of international environmental rules
• Leading by example and driving up scale fast
• Access to financing