Ask any business leader what the circular economy is, and you’ll probably get a well-informed response. But from a practical standpoint, most circular endeavours today remain controlled experiments rather than full-scale transformations.
And it shows: according to some estimates, the world dumps over two billion tons of waste every year. One measure finds humanity is using resources gleaned from the earth 1.7 times faster than the planet can produce them.
Businesses have had centuries to perfect the linear economy practices of resource exploitation – so what will it take to unlearn those wasteful principles and pivot to a circular mode of operation?
The answer is as old as business itself: economic opportunity. Businesses need a compelling economic reason to make a radical shift from the status quo. However, this will require devising entirely new business models for circular value recovery, which differ significantly from linear economic models. Both short- and long-term value propositions...