Industrial sector
Download our science-based sustainability guide that features concrete actions, helps you find your bearings, and successfully guides you through the five phases of transformation.
Making the transition from a linear to a circular business model has gone from being a nice-to-have to business critical. Organisations that stick stubbornly to a traditional linear economic model are taking a big risk.
The good news is that transitioning your company to a circular business model is definitely doable. And, for industrial and consumer goods enterprises, offers huge potential and opportunities, including higher margins and long-term certainty. But, it means establishing new ecosystems, developing the right strategy, and, most importantly, it requires perseverance.
We’ve developed a science-based guide that features concrete actions, helps you find your bearings, and successfully guides you through the five phases of transformation. Don’t be a late adopter – become a first mover and exploit the potential of the circular economy for your business.
The idea behind circular economy is to use resources more efficiently, extend product life spans, and realise closed-loop material and energy flows, minimising waste and pollution. This is in direct contrast to the linear ‘take-make-waste’ economy, predicated on goods produced from primary raw materials and destined to become waste at the end of their useful life. The circular economy is based on three principles:
Products must be designed to avoid producing pollution and ending up as waste at the end of their life. This requires businesses to rethink product development so that end-of-life waste is viewed as a design fault and is eliminated. The objective is to realise resource management systems that place emphasis on preserving the value of raw materials and create zero-waste products and systems.
The focus should be on keeping materials in use, either as products, components, or raw materials, in order to increase the proportion of resources that are recirculated. This is achieved by using highly durable products, extending life spans, and recycling products and materials for future use. Overall, the goal is to reduce raw material consumption per product. This principle is about much more than just recycling, and it’s important not to equate the two.
The goal is to regenerate natural systems by moving away from a ‘take-make-waste’ economy and safely recirculating natural nutrients through renewable energy. This protects the environment, boosts biodiversity, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design […]. It replaces the ‘end-of-life’ concept with restoration, shifts towards the use of renewable energy, eliminates the use of toxic chemicals, which impair reuse, and aims for the elimination of waste through the superior design of materials, products, systems, and, within this, business models.
In 2023, it took the global population just 214 days to consume the amount of biological resources regenerated in one year. Overexploitation and shortages of resources are an existential threat to society and business.
For companies, there are four main risks:
The environmental benefits of circularity are obvious. But for businesses the real interest lies in its economic potential – which, it must be said, is huge. With the global economy proving increasingly volatile and global markets undergoing major shifts, enterprises benefit from:
Despite the opportunities outlined above, many businesses are persisting with a linear business model, making only marginal changes in the direction of recycling.
The reasons for this are varied. In addition to structural hurdles, such as the absence of a legal framework that encourages circularity, little expertise within the workforce, and/or the failure of the market and the public sector to incentivise circularity, there are also internal factors impeding the drive towards circularity.
Many businesses believe that it’s impossible to manufacture their products for circularity. Others are deterred by the high levels of up-front investment required or worried about the technical complexity of realising circularity.
For established businesses in particular, the transition to a circular business model is a complex process. In contrast to start-ups, they start out with an existing business model and established products. The often radical transformation process requires strategic thinking and perseverance across five different areas:
Based on these areas, we have identified five phases of transformation that businesses have to go through to realise a circular business model. These five phases are not linear and do not take place in isolation. Rather, they are interdependent, extend across several levels of transformation, and need to be continuously reviewed and refined:
The first phase involves developing a sustainability strategy which delivers an enduring competitive advantage and identifies quick wins.
The key questions to answer in this phase are:
Zühlke works with you to help you find your bearings and set priorities for your business’ sustainability strategy. We evaluate the current situation using tools such as life cycle assessment, support companies in bridging the gap between their sustainability goals and customer needs, and identify business opportunities for sustainable innovation.
Together, we develop a strategic roadmap to help you realise a successful sustainability transformation in your enterprise. This enables you to reduce costs, expand into new customer segments, realise new revenue streams, and quickly create value with new, sustainable products and business models.
As an expert in sustainable product and business model development, Zühlke helps industrial and consumer goods businesses to create sustainable ecosystems. Together, we answer the question of who the business can partner with to realise a long-term circular business model and build a new business ecosystem.
Take your first step by downloading the complete guide here:
