A new briefing note, Jobs and Skills to Drive a Circular Built Environment, pinpoints jobs and skills needed for the circular transition in the construction industry. Based on four circular strategies in the built environment, the publication forecasts labour market shifts and outlines levers to unlock their potential.
The European Commission declared 2023 The Year of Skills, recognising the importance of upskilling for economic development. The construction sector is essential for the EU economy and represents a major source of employment, accounting for 9% of the EU’s GDP and providing 18 million direct jobs. At the same time, circular construction aimed at reducing the value chain’s environmental impact is a major driver of labour market changes. For example, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that the circular transition will eliminate 22 million linear jobs globally while creating 29 million new opportunities.
Four circular strategies in the built environment will feed into career profiles in the coming years. These are smart material management, Product-as-a-Service (PaaS) business models, Bio-based material design and manufacturing, and Off-site, modular construction. Most of the jobs needed to drive these circular strategies and business models already exist in the workforce. However, workers may require upskilling to learn new knowledge and skills.
For some new functions—such as digital modelling or the sourcing of sustainable building materials—there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. In some cases, existing specialists will need to shoulder these tasks. In others, the novel functions will be split across different jobs. Finally, entirely new occupations and educational tracks will be created to harness cutting-edge technologies.
As the energy transition has shown, the lack of the right skills at the right time can hinder the industry’s growth. The report, therefore, calls for urgent action to upskill and retrain the workforce in the construction sector to achieve a circular built environment in the near future.
Read the full report here.
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Circle Economy Foundation, an impact organisation based in the Netherlands, acquired Sustainability Games. This gamified e-learning platform addresses the green skills gap: the need for more professionals to fulfil the rapidly growing demand for circular jobs.
The Sustainability Games platform, combined with Circle Economy’s 12+ years of research and development of circular solutions, delivers a highly flexible and scalable solution to supply knowledge to any changemaker. The platform provides a continuous learning experience composed of tracks and minigames—fun and easy yet in-depth. It can assess an organisation or a team and track their progress, raise awareness about the circular economy, help shape collective understanding, and develop and certify teams’ skills. These modular elements can be used separately or all at once, depending on the needs of an organisation.
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‘Digital innovation is a strategic pillar for Circle Economy to scale and accelerate our mission: to double global circularity by 2032. The acquisition of Sustainability Games unlocks the potential to deliver our research and data insights as educational content to change-makers worldwide. We wholeheartedly welcome Thijs and his team to Circle Economy and look forward to continuing this journey together.’ says Ivonne Bojoh, COO & Director Digital at Circle Economy.
Our circular economy experts co-create learning tracks with clients to fine-tune game experiences according to the industry and team specifics. The result is simultaneous education and engagement for hundreds of people—helping close the green skills gap at scale.
The platform can be compared to a restaurant menu with lessons, minigames and tests for dishes. This allows one to pick and choose tracks and journeys for specific purposes: from a fun activity at an event to a fully-fledged training programme for employees. Learning journeys typically consist of reading materials, videos, questionnaires and minigames, individually- and team-played. The learning tracks are well-suited for entities that are just embarking on their sustainability journey and want to make sure that all people involved are on the same page and equipped with basic knowledge.
‘I’m really happy that we are now part of a much larger impact-driven organisation with a flagship product like the Circularity Gap Report, many sustainability experts' content and a strong digital mindset. Circle Economy and Sustainability Games were already in strategic partnership and launched the Circularity Games at Web Summit Lisbon last year. This is simply the next step towards greater impact.’ says Thijs Struijk-Kafchi, Founder at Sustainability Games.
Circle Economy believes that businesses worldwide, as well as local and national governments, must join hands to accelerate the transition to a circular economy and avoid climate breakdown. Closing the Circularity Gap starts with bridging the knowledge gap. With this acquisition, Circle Economy can now deliver knowledge at scale, encouraging not just education but also the adoption of circular narratives. Our objective is to educate 100 million people over the next eight years, empowering businesses, cities and nations to go circular.
Learn more about Circularity Games at https://circularityacademy.com
Learn more about Sustainability Games at https://sustainability.games/
Amsterdam/Velp, 09 February 2023
THE ROLE OF CERAMIC BUILDING MATERIALS IN A CIRCULAR ECONOMY
In collaboration with Royal Dutch Building Ceramics (KNB), Circle Economy has reviewed the current and future role of ceramic building materials in a circular economy. Circle Economy has confirmed that ceramics are among the more environmentally friendly materials in the Netherlands and elsewhere, with good examples of the reuse of these products. However, to make the Dutch economy fully circular by 2050, the building ceramics sector still has major steps to take. Circle Economy recommends various options for improvement in its report The role of ceramics in the circular economy.
Ceramic products in the built environment include bricks, roof tiles and tiles made of fired clay. This material has a fundamental and unique role in the built environment because of its functional, aesthetic, environmental and cultural-historical values. At the same time, building ceramics are used in a relatively limited quantity, currently representing no more than 5% of the total annual volume of building materials in the Netherlands. Due to their versatility and sustainability, it is hard to imagine a circular future without ceramic building products.
Circle Economy has found that the environmental impact of ceramic products has already been reduced over the years through innovation in the sector, from more efficient heating technologies and product innovation to contributions to nature development during resource extraction. What’s more, building ceramics are produced using locally sourced clay—a renewable resource for the Netherlands, which boasts a continuous clay supply from its delta. Due to their long lifespans and low maintenance requirements, the environmental performance of ceramic products tops most alternatives, such as concrete.
Circle Economy recommends further innovation in emission-free production techniques, new product formulas and alternative business models and partnerships. The sector is already taking the first steps along this path, with a broadening range of detachable products, increasing recycling and reuse and the development of new business models—but this needs to be accelerated.
Circle Economy’s researchers have found that reducing (fossil) energy use and related emissions will be crucial to be able to consider ceramic products circular in the future. The most promising alternatives include the use of sustainable hydrogen and, where possible, renewable electricity for microwave oven technology for clay drying.
Furthermore, Circle Economy recommends investing more in making ceramic products detachable and reusable. A significant portion of ceramic products are already technically reusable, such as paving bricks, ceramic roof tiles and more recently, dry-stacked masonry bricks. However, in practice, ceramic products are often wasted at end-of-life and reuse is often not possible due to the use of adhesives. New business models can help in both cases. With product-as-a-service offerings, for instance, the product remains the property of the manufacturer, giving it control over the total life cycle and improving its ability to innovate on reusability. Products can also be made multifunctional to increase their value: roof tiles with integrated solar panels, for example.
Circle Economy sees supply chain cooperation as a critical success factor in the continued transition to a circular ceramic industry. Cooperation within the sector or with knowledge institutes, construction companies and other construction suppliers will be crucial—as will connecting sustainability challenges to other societal challenges. Going forward, a clear and coherent circular vision for ceramics within a circular building sector will need to be developed.
Circle Economy
Circle Economy is an impact organisation with an international team of passionate experts, These support companies, cities and countries with practical and scalable solutions to put the circular economy into practice. Circle Economy's vision is an economic system that ensures the planet and all people can thrive. To combat the climate crisis, Circle Economy is committed to doubling global circularity by 2032.
KNB
The organisation Royal Dutch Building Ceramics unites manufacturers of masonry, street and interior wall bricks, ceramic roof tiles and fired wall and floor tiles. These manufacturers innovate continuously to meet new trends and social challenges, including the energy transition and circular economy. KNB represents their collective interests in technical standards, clay extraction, environmental, energy and climate issues and is active in the field of social, economic and technical issues for the brick industry in particular. KNB is based in Velp.
To accelerate the transition to a circular economy through collaboration and knowledge sharing, 20 pioneering circular companies in the Netherlands, including Swapfiets, Fairphone and Reflower, have joined forces under the name of the Club of Circular Entrepreneurs. The group is supported by 10 partners, among which are Circle Economy, ABN AMRO and CircularX. During the Dutch Week of the Circular Economy, the Club opens an exhibition to showcase circular products, services and innovations.
Read the full press release below (in Dutch)
Amsterdam, 6 februari 2023 – Uit het recent gepubliceerde Circularity Gap Report blijkt dat wereldwijd het aandeel van hergebruikte materialen en grondstoffen in onze economie in vijf jaar is gedaald. Vanuit de overtuiging om met samenwerking en kennisdeling transities te versnellen, hebben 20 pionierende circulaire bedrijven de krachten gebundeld onder de naam de Club van Circulaire Ondernemers. Vooruitstrevende ondernemingen als Swapfiets, Fairphone, Reflower en Pieter Pot voegen zich bij de club. Vandaag, bij aanvang van de Week van de Circulaire Economie, opent het collectief een pop-up expositie in CIRCL op de Zuidas om circulaire producten, diensten en innovaties in de spotlight te zetten en een concreter actieplan te ontketenen. Sinds 2022 komt de groep van 20 circulaire koplopers bij elkaar. Tijdens kwartaalmeetings delen ze kennis, learnings en houden ze elkaar scherp op landelijke langetermijndoelstellingen.
Met het oog op de plannen vanuit de overheid om de economie te transformeren naar een duurzame, volledige circulaire economie in 2050 streeft de club naar een aanscherping van doelen en acties met een impuls voor circulair ondernemen als gevolg. De routekaart vanuit de Rijksoverheid is nu te onduidelijk en weinig stimulerend voor circulaire ondernemers. Een circulaire economie, waarin duurzame hernieuwbare grondstoffen worden gebruikt en grondstoffen worden hergebruikt, komt alleen binnen handbereik met meer positieve financiële prikkels, een gelijk speelveld, transparantie en gedragsverandering.
De groep circulaire bedrijven in Nederland is nog groeiende en door samen op te trekken wil de club een krachtig geluid laten horen en versnelling van de transitie aanjagen. De groep bedrijven vinden ook wederhoor en worden gesteund door 10 partners, zoals Circle Economy, ABN AMRO en CircularX. Richard Burger, medeoprichter en Sustainability Director van Swapfiets: “Op vele fronten zien we dat de lineaire economie onhoudbaar is, en niet in lijn met een duurzame toekomst. Om de klimaatdoelen van 2050 te behalen moet het nodige veranderen. Als Club van Circulaire Ondernemers roepen we daarom op om van circulair ondernemen de status quo te maken, opschaalmogelijkheden te creëren voor bestaande ondernemers, wetgeving hierop aan te passen en disruptief te kiezen voor blijvende systeemverandering met positieve financiële prikkels. Samen laten we zien dat de oplossingen er al zijn, maar de drempels moeten lager om meer doeners te stimuleren tot circulair ondernemen.”
Expositie tijdens Week van de Circulaire Economie
6 februari t/m 11 februari staat in het teken van de Week van de Circulaire Economie waarbij ondernemers, netwerkorganisaties, kennispartners en overheidsinstellingen kennis en kunde delen om circulair ondernemerschap van de grond te tillen.“Circulair ondernemen floreert nog niet, terwijl Nederland wel daartoe in staat is en een groot deel van de oplossingen zelfs al bestaan. Daarom laten we met onze pop-up expositie zien dat er al een hoop doeners zijn die werken aan systeemverandering. De tijd van netwerken en onderzoeken is voorbij en daarom leggen we de focus op de bedrijven. Wij zijn de doeners en weten wat er nodig is om circulair ondernemen te stimuleren”, aldus Ellyne Bierman, oprichter van Reflower.
De pop-up tentoonstelling van Nederlandse circulaire producten, diensten en innovaties vanuit de Club van Circulaire Ondernemers is van maandag 6 februari tot en met vrijdag 10 februari tussen 09:00 uur en 17:00 uur voor iedereen toegankelijk en gratis te bezoeken in CIRCL te Amsterdam.
Over Club van Circulaire Ondernemers
Sinds 2022 hebben 20 circulaire bedrijven de krachten gebundeld om samen op te trekken in de transitie naar de Nederlandse circulaire economie in 2050. Tijdens kwartaalmeetings komt de groep bij elkaar om kennis te delen, learnings uit te wisselen en een versnelling van de transitie aan te jagen. De club bestaat uit 20 bedrijven: Swapfiets, Fairphone, Repeat Audio, Reflower, CIRCLE CLOSET, BIYU, Pieter Pot, Chainable, Tiny Library, NORNORM, Moyee Coffee, Speeltegoed, Homie, MUD Jeans, Roetz Bikes, Aectual, Still, Firmhouse, Buurman Utrecht en Kairos Furniture. En wordt gesteund door 10 partners die nauw verbonden zijn met een circulair ecosysteem: Copper8, Impact Hub, Circular Finance Lab, Circle Economy, CircularX, Dutch Academic Network for CE, Circo, Change Inc., Blyde Benelux en Innoboost.
Of the landmark 100 billion tonnes of virgin materials extracted from Earth annually, only 7.2% make it back into the economy. A more circular world could reduce material consumption by one-third, tackle climate change and bring the world back within safe planetary limits.
16th January, Davos—Reducing global material use through circular solutions, such as reuse, repair, and recycling of items, can limit global warming to 2-degrees and bring human activities back within safe planetary boundaries1, according to a new report by impact organisation Circle Economy, in collaboration with Deloitte. The report was launched today in Davos, at the World Economic Forum.
The global economy is measured to be 7.2% circular today—dropping from 9.1% in 2018 when Circle Economy first calculated the figure.2 It means that of the landmark 100 billion tonnes of virgin materials extracted from Earth annually, only 7.2% make it back into the economy in the form of recycled materials. Over the past six years alone, the global economy has extracted and used almost as many materials as over the course of the entire 20th century, finds the Circularity Gap Report 2023.
Matthew Fraser, Head of Research and Development at Circle Economy, said that this low level of circularity ‘demonstrates how reliant the global economy is on new, virgin materials. There is huge potential to increase the global economy’s use of secondary materials.’
Current linear processes don’t just sap the planet’s finite materials—they also produce tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and waste, a considerable part of which can be prevented. According to the study, key societal needs—such as nutrition and housing—could be fulfilled with just 70% of the materials the world economy currently consumes. Crucially, cutting material extraction by 30% will hugely improve environmental health across land, sea and air. The key to this reduction lies in the transition from fossil fuels to more renewable energy sources and lowering demand for high-volume minerals, such as sand and gravel, which are largely used for housing and infrastructure. In practice, it means boosting renewable energy and renovating old buildings and infrastructure instead of constructing new ones, in combination with other measures. The most appropriate approaches will vary significantly between geographies given the just transition imperative acknowledged in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The potential reduction of material use will look different across global regions, some like the USA and EU member states, must radically reduce their material extraction and use, as they currently consume 31% of materials. While others such as China will need to stabilise their material consumption.
‘The linear economy has a number of detrimental effects on the environment that significantly affect peoples' wellbeing. Our research shows that by adopting circular economy practices, we can cut material extraction, continue to prosper, and return to living within the safe limits of this planet,’ points out Martijn Lopes Cardozo, CEO at Circle Economy.
According to the Circularity Gap Report 2023, four key global systems account for the lion’s share of global emissions and waste—the Built environment, Food systems, Mobility and transport, and Manufactured goods and consumables. 16 ambitious circular economy solutions implemented across these systems can reverse the current overshoot of five planetary boundaries, ensuring safety for land, air and water and limiting global warming to below 2-degrees.
The food system now occupies roughly half of the habitable surface of the planet. It is responsible for one-third of global GHG emissions, 8–10% of which relate to the production of lost and wasted food. Transitioning to a circular food system would include cutting food waste by improving transport and storage management, supporting healthy soils to keep land arable for longer and focusing on local, seasonal and organic produce to reduce the need for toxic fertilisers, fuel and transportation.
The built environment accounts for roughly 40% of global GHG emissions, with cement production alone contributing around 7% of the CO2 released into the atmosphere globally. Boosting building’s energy efficiency and repurposing existing building stock are just some of the ways this could be improved.
The mobility and transport system is a major driver of climate change and ocean acidification, responsible for approximately 25% of GHG emissions globally. In a circular mobility system, walking, cycling and remote work would be key, as would investment in high-quality public transport and a transition to electric vehicles.
Manufactured goods and consumables imply highly energy- and material-intensive industrial processes. The Circularity Gap Report 2023 estimates that over one-quarter of global solid waste generation is industrial waste. This could be improved with more sustainable fashion practices, promotion of responsible buying and extending the lifetime of machinery.
Dieuwertje Ewalts, director Circular economy and sustainability at Deloitte, commented: ‘These findings reinforce that we have reached a point where the planet cannot keep up with the human demand for material goods. Circularity offers us the opportunity to reduce planetary pressures. Involvement from business and the creation of more circular products going forward will be key in creating a positive impact for both the planet and society.’
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1Nine quantifiable and interrelated planetary boundaries within which humanity can safely continue to thrive: crossing these boundaries increases the risk of causing irreversible environmental changes, threatening human life on Earth. Developed in 2009 by Johan Rockström, former director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, together with 28 world renowned scientists. Find out more on the Stockholm Resilience Centre website.
2Circle Economy has improved its methodology each year, with 2023 marking the most significant modification to our calculations. While this allows us to make more accurate accounts, it also means that this year’s Circularity Metric can’t be directly or accurately compared with previous years. Nevertheless, we can say with certainty that the rising rate of global material extraction and use is causing the rate of circularity to shrink.
Circle Economy is excited to announce the launch of the Impact Report 2022. Following a year of circular analysis for businesses, cities and nations, we focused our attention inwards to assess our impacts across three key actions: analyse, act and scale. Looking back at 2022, we are delighted to witness the circular economy increasingly gaining a place on policymakers’ agendas worldwide. Below are some of the most inspiring examples of how we’ve put circularity into action.
In 2022, we have empowered seven businesses, 11 cities and 11 nations across four continents to become more circular. This contributes to the total of 120 businesses, 51 cities and 23 nations across six continents that we’ve aided over the past ten years. We’ve also trained more than 2,700 people across 350 organisations in circular principles over the past decade.
Zooming in on the practical outcomes of our work, we’ve supplied multiple businesses, cities and nations with the data-driven insights instrumental for their circular transitions. Thanks to the Circularity Gap Report Sweden, for example, Swedish stakeholders have discovered significant gaps in the country’s audacious net zero 2045 plan.
‘The Circularity Gap Report Sweden came as a significant enrichment but also as a surprise. Though in the past we have placed a lot of emphasis on recycling and lowering Sweden's carbon footprint, we realised there is still a lot to be done in terms of circularity’, said Carl Jensen, Project Manager at RISE, a Swedish research institute.
In Northern Ireland, the regional Department for the Economy (DfE) used our Circularity Gap Report Northern Ireland to inform future circular policy development and reported about this to the UK parliament.
In the meantime, our business team has empowered international retail chain Action to open its very first Circular Product Specialist position. Since 2020, we’ve conducted ‘circle scans’ for the retailer’s 13 product lines—from gardening and home goods to technology—and have trained more than 25 stakeholders, enabling Action to make more sustainable decisions when determining the items that will crop up on its shelves.
Later in the year, we partnered with Fasion for Good for the collaborative Sorting for Circularity Europe initiative, which produced a global database of 100+ textile recyclers to stimulate a recycling market for unwanted textiles. This will help textile sorters to find suitable recyclers and prevent tonnes of materials from going to waste every year.
A number of powerful collaborations went live and bore their first fruits this year. As a culmination of work with an International Financial Institution (IFI) exchange network, we published the Circular Finance Roadmap to unleash the power of IFIs to fund the circular transition. In 2022, we also became an accredited organisation under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and developed joint initiatives with Chatham House, the World Bank and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Last but not least, our digital team launched landmark initiatives, catalysing our 11 years of research and development of circular solutions and putting them into the service of the global online community. A beta version of the GANBATTE online platform went live—currently focusing on cities but with more to come soon.
‘To date, the open-access ganbatte.world platform has been visited by over 1,100 unique cities around the world, and more than 20 cities have reached out to take next steps in just a matter of weeks. The platform currently contains data for 6,000 cities around the world with baseline data, case studies and tools—and this is only the beginning,’ says Ivonne Bojoh, COO & Director Digital at Circle Economy.
And, at the Web Summit Lisbon 2022, we unveiled Circularity Academy, a gamified e-learning platform meant to assess, engage and inspire people, with the aim of getting them involved in the circular transition. ‘This year, we have delivered a circular economy learning track to a top management consulting firm, to train over 1,000 consultants,’ adds Ivonne Bojoh.
These are only a few highlights from the Impact Report 2022. Download the full report to read about more good news for circularity around the globe.
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On the 22nd of November, we launched three reports on the circular future of three European industries: automotive, machinery and equipment and construction. Developed in collaboration with Bain & Company, the studies were presented during webinars featuring industry leaders as well as authors from Circle Economy and Bain & Company.
The webinars were kicked-off by Marc de Wit, our Director of Businesses, who linked the reports to unparalleled challenges people and businesses encounter today: ‘We are confronted with what the linear economy has brought us. Forest fires, floods, droughts, famine—these are all negative impacts of 1.1-degree warming, with huge ramifications for personal lives, livelihoods and industries. It is our responsibility to fix this’.
Based on our Circularity Gap Reports, we identified key ‘broken elements’ in the global economy and teamed up with Bain & Company to zoom in on three of them: mobility, built environment and machinery. By implementing circular solutions across these systems, businesses can slash emissions and material use while bolstering profitability and supply chain resilience. However, circular transformation requires tackling specific challenges.
One of them, as noted by Harry Morrison, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Partner at Bain & Company, is the misaligned incentives across different economic actors. In a linear economy, companies address only one part of the value chain while disregarding the rest—be it production, sales or waste management. In contrast, bringing pre-used materials back into the loop requires closer collaboration between stakeholders. Sharing takeaways from Bain & Company’s survey, Harry Morrisson named the lack of collaboration across value chains as the top barrier to circularity for the machinery and equipment industry. ‘But the top success factor was having built an ecosystem and having the right partnerships in place’, pointed out the analyst.
His assessment was mirrored by Adrien Bron, Partner at Bain & Company, who spoke about the European construction sector. According to Adrien, three parties in a typical construction project—designers, construction companies and owners—have been struggling to align their interests. This impedes a wider deployment of novel and secondary materials, for example. To address this bottleneck, Adrien Bron suggested implementing policies and fiscal interventions that can challenge the status quo in the sector.
Another valid solution for all three industries is, as Giuseppe Della Greca, Circular Economy expert at Enel Group put it, ‘increasing the transparency of material flows through the value chain’. For the built environment, this can mean an ‘online booking system’ that allows for tracking and tracing of building components for potential reuse and recycling. Christian Veddeler, Senior Associate at 3XN Architects, highlighted that one should know what materials are locked in buildings, adding: ‘This also helps during the lifetime of a building when it comes to maintenance and repair because you can anticipate what the life cycle of a building component is so it can be properly addressed and replaced’.
Owain Griffiths, Head of Circular Economy at Volvo Cars, spoke about the challenges that car-makers encounter while going circular.
Experts agreed that raising the costs of linear production and incentivising circular solutions is key to behavioural change both for consumers and producers. Speaking about the mobility-as-a-service model, Owain Griffiths, Head of Circular Economy at Volvo Cars, pointed out that some customer segments might not switch to car-sharing until the use of personal vehicles becomes pricier through increased taxes, for example.
As added by Adrien Bron, new buildings today are ‘awfully cheap’ because they don’t include the costs created after the construction is completed. On the contrary, retrofit projects, which imply adding new components to existing buildings, are pricey. According to the analyst, tackling this problem will require ‘increasing the cost of new build by internalising the costs and, at the same time, decreasing the cost of retrofit by making the processes more efficient and more modular’.
However, businesses and policymakers should also think about ‘carrots’. According to Luc Delestrade, Head of Energy and Environment at Distinct Energies, customers must be offered some boons to opt for a circular house. ‘The idea is to go back to the original design of a building and preserve the best of it while making it attractive to modern customers. The attractiveness will come from comfort and affordability, so it’s just about finding what area might be improved. It might be energy performance, insulation or just retrofitting the windows’, said the expert.
Luc Delestrade, Head of Energy and Environment at Distinct Energies, spoke about ways to increase the attractiveness of circular construction projects.
For the automotive industry, such an advantage can be flexibility which comes with the mobility-as-a-service model. Especially for city dwellers who can, for example, rent a car for a weekend while bypassing traffic jams with public transport during the working week. As Björn Noack, Partner at Bain & Company, argued: ‘Flexibility is of such high value for the younger generation, at least in urban areas. If we have the right services to offer to these people, I clearly see the balance shifting’.
Curious to learn more? Read the full reports and watch the recordings of the webinars.
Beyond recycling: The circular opportunity for passenger cars in Europe
A circular future for the European machinery & equipment industry
A circular future for the European construction sector: light commercial and residential buildings
Amsterdam, 16 December 2022
Circle Economy and Circular IQ are starting a new collaboration through which they will work together advising clients in identifying, evaluating and implementing circular solutions. Together, Circle Economy and CircularIQ will enable clients to follow a data-driven approach to gain business-critical intelligence in the performance of their global supply chains.
Monitoring circularity metrics and data are becoming one of the key success factors for businesses to remain ahead of the game and soon they are required to comply with regulation. In joining forces to uncover data that today is often unavailable, incomplete and incomparable, Circular IQ and Circle Economy will empower clients to take charge of their circular performance and decide where their actions and investments are most impactful.
The collaboration will harness Circular IQ’s leading software solution, the data-driven CTI tool, along with Circle Economy’s track record deploying their Circle Scan to identify impact hotspots and key levers for circular change. The collaboration also builds on Circle Economy’s existing digital solutions such as the Circularity Assessment Tool and Circularity Academy. By going to market together, the organisations expect impact on this important space for companies that want to but don’t know how to start their circular journey and transform their operations according to circular principles. The joint approach helps companies set up the basics, prioritise actions, develop a plan and monitor progress on their circular performance. CircularIQ and Circle Economy will jointly offer clients new and unique engagement models that were not available before the partnership.
“Together with Circle Economy, Circular IQ’s customers will have access to best-in-class consulting support and analytics capabilities to align and scale follow-up actions towards meeting company targets”, said Roy Vercoulen, CEO of Circular IQ
“We are really excited to partner with Circular IQ as together we are able to offer an end-to-end solution allowing clients to monitor, steer and scale their circular activities” said Marc de Wit, Director of Businesses at Circle Economy
About Circular IQ
Circular IQ is a software startup that delivers best in class SaaS solutions for businesses across the globe that seek to deliver on their sustainability promises. Our vision is that for the circular economy to thrive, data-driven solutions that move the needle are needed immediately. Not just any solutions; but solutions aimed at improving your business impacts. Software has an important role to play as actions require decisions. More impactful decisions are made when the information that fuels them improves. Currently 91% of the materials mined are wasted after being used once. Our software enables businesses to take effective action to improve their impacts in the area of resource depletion, global warming and waste generation by showing them how their use of materials is linked to these impacts.
About Circle Economy
Circle Economy is a global impact organisation with an international team of passionate experts based in Amsterdam. We empower businesses, cities and nations with practical and scalable solutions to put the circular economy into action. Our vision is an economic system that ensures the planet and all people can thrive. To avoid climate breakdown, our goal is to double global circularity by 2032. Circle Economy’s business practice provides consulting services, supporting forward-thinking leaders and businesses in identifying, evaluating and implementing circular solutions. We apply a differentiated and unique data-driven and fact based supply chain approach, applying established methodologies of both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Find out more at circle-economy.com
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