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Including managing the product lifecycle; improving product longevity; preventing spoilage; overage; defective products; unsold goods; design for repair and disassembly; circularity; beneficial reuse for surplus; maintaining goods to extend working life; recovery and collections systems; material stewardship; achieving maximum use from resources; and limiting the use of virgin and non-renewable resources.
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We are consuming more than ever before, generating more waste than ever before, and failing to recover materials for re-use. Many companies realise that they need to integrate product and material stewardship into their strategy, but lack clarity on the work needed to develop and achieve their goals. Anchored in research, our Product and Materials Stewardship: A Getting Started Guide aims to support your company as it begins or revisits an embedded product and materials strategy. It helps build a foundational understanding of the issue and provides clarity on the work ahead.
This guide explains how life cycle thinking and mapping help you identify and better understand the potential impacts of your products and services on people and the environment. By exploring environmental and social impacts from your raw materials, through manufacturing and distribution, to customer use, and end of life, you can identify hot spots and leverage points to take action on.
Learn more about how StemCell Technologies used our guide to identify actual, potential, and external levers to improve product development.
Our forthcoming guide on life cycle assessments help you understand the social and environmental impacts of your products or services. This guide explains what a life cycle assessment is, why your business might want to undertake one, and what to know about the process before you reach out to an LCA consultant.
To be notified when this guide is released, sign-up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn.
This guide from Leyla Acaroglu, editor of Disruptive Design, provides an introduction to lifecycle thinking, identifies lifecycle stages and key components for analysis, and explains how to apply this approach within your own organisation. Leyla also provides helpful tools and tips to get you started.
This short clip provides a great introduction to applying whole systems and lifecycle thinking to a product using the example of a clothes dryer. It was developed as a part of the Autodesk Education Community's Sustainability Workshop. The page also has a slide deck and video script, as well as links to information on Life Cycle Assessment, The Rocky Mountain Institute's 10xE design principles, and biomimicry.
This comprehensive handbook outlines a method for analysing the social impacts of a product across its entire life cycle. It presents a number of indicators you can use to make impacts more visible and potentially identify hotspots, risks, and opportunities for improvement. It was developed by The Roundtable for Product Social Metrics, a business-led working group that works in collaboration with academia, NGOs, government, and industry organisations.
Is your company ready to take the first step in managing its end-of-life packaging? If so, this short primer from WWF can help to acquaint you with the basics of extended producer responsibility (EPR). This document highlights the benefits of EPR, and provides a high-level overview of the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in the EPR system.
This "brainstorming tool" is a great prompt for early thinking on improving the sustainability of a product or service. Taken from the Okala Practitioner Guide, it organises different strategies for minimising ecological impact around the stages of the product life-cycle.
Developed by ICMM, this guide provides examples of good practices and a range of tools that can be used to make well-considered decisions when planning for the final lifecycle stages of a mine. This guide builds on the Planning for Integrated Mine Closure: Toolkit, and is an invaluable resource for personnel responsible for mine management and financial oversight. Among other helpful insights, this guide articulates closure vision, principles, and objectives; the implementation of progressive closure activities; and planning for social transition to help reduce the impact of closure on workers and the community, among other insights.
The World Food LCA Database is a comprehensive, international Life Cycle Inventory database and global initiative led by Quantis in partnership with leaders in the agri-food sector. This database will help you to evaluate the lifecycle and better plan for resource constraints and higher resource costs by providing transparent and consistent data for agricultural and food products based on the best science available.
Co-developed by WBCSD and One Planet Network with input from over 150 experts across 80 organisations, the Global Circularity Protocol for Business (GCP) provides a practical, global framework for measuring, managing, improving, and communicating an organisation's circular performance, using standardised steps and metrics to drive credible, scalable impact across value chains. The GCP is built on WBCSD’s Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) and aligned with GRI, ISO 59020, ESRS, IFRS S1/S2, and the GHG Protocol to ensure consistency across sustainability reporting.
Version 1.0 provides a step-by-step application journey for users, and enables a progressive approach that allows organisations to evolve through increasing levers of maturity in their circular performance assessment. It also provides core concepts, methodologies, and indicators that can help your organisation to start assessing and improving circular performance with clarity, transparency, and confidence, such as tracking material flows; assessing impacts across climate, nature, equity and business performance; and communicating results through comparable, decision-useful information.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation provides a range of videos, audio files, case studies, and slides that can help you to understand the limitations of our linear economy, the aspects and benefits of a circular approach to industry, and the principles that can enable businesses and communities to achieve a more sustainable economy.
This platform was created by the Circular Innovation Council to support Canada’s collective understanding of the circular economy and how purchasing advances it. It showcases a broad range of resources that may be especially helpful for sustainability practitioners and leaders working in Canada, such as case studies from a variety of sectors and industries; guidance and best practices; policies and frameworks; and purchasing tools.
Although created for the Canadian context, many of the learning materials here provide lessons and insights that are equally applicable elsewhere.
Circular business practices need to be embedded into business strategy in order to be sustainable. This briefing from the SustainAbility Institute can help you with the early stages of developing a circular economy strategy that aligns with your business strategy. It identifies four steps that can help you to kickstart your company's pursuit eliminating waste and maximising the reuse of resources: identify drivers and goals, determine focal points, develop an action plan, and execute.
The Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative measures current states of circularity and provides annual findings on the global state of transition based on the latest scientific evidence. They also provide insights into the circularity gap of individual countries, regions, and sectors.
Their flagship report, the Global Circularity Gap Report, provides a yearly update on the state of global circularity. It examines how materials enter the economy and how they either re-enter or exit it. It also provides a snapshot of the current state and future trajectory of circularity; introduces and unpacks the "Value Gap," which offers a framework for understanding inefficiencies in today’s linear, take-make-waste economy; and identifies key levers and next steps for advancing circularity. This resource can help bring you up to speed on resource use and provides an abundance of compelling numerics that highlight the need for - and pace of - systems change.
The momentum to step away from the linear take-make-waste economic model is growing, and transparency and alignment are crucial to establishing a common language across industries and governments. The Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) was created to address this gap. This resource introduces an objective and quantitative framework that can support businesses of all industries, sizes, value chain positions, and geographies to measure and communicate their circularity in a consistent way.
This guide is divided into two parts. The first part explains the CTI framework and methodology; highlights the need for circular metrics and the use of CTI; explains the CTI process cycle; and explains how to get started. The second part is the CTI User manual, which outlines seven process steps for performing an assessment.
WBCSD has also created sector-specific guidance, such as for electronic devices, buildings, and fashion and textiles.
Circular Transition Indicators V4.0 – Metrics for business, by business
WBCSD has also created CTI case studies to support you
Circular Transition Indicators (CTI): Sector Guidance – Electronics devices
Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) Sector Guidance – Buildings
Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) Sector Guidance – Fashion and Textile
There is growing pressure on the availability of resources, and our current "take-make-waste" approach does not focus on preserving the value and utility of resources to relieve this pressure. This short essay from WBCSD can help you understand the need for transitioning to a circular economy by defining linear risks and highlighting their wider impacts on business, communities, and the environment. Also included is a linear risk matrix with links to material, real-word examples of consequences for business.
If you are looking for resources that will help you to build a business case for pursuing circular economy strategies, this resource is a good place to start. This white paper explains how circular economy strategies can reduce the risk of investments and drive superior risk-adjusted returns for investors and financial institutions. By decoupling economic growth from resource consumption, diversifying business models, and allowing your business to better anticipate stricter regulations and customer behaviour, circular economy principles can reduce exposure to supply chain disruptions, resource price volatility, and more.
This primer from the Climate Governance Initiative and the World Economic Forum was created to provide board directors with a practical understanding of the circular economy and how circular business models can be applied to achieve climate and environmental commitments. It unpacks the concept of a circular economy, explains the ways it can benefit businesses, and outlines how to get started. It also highlights emerging circular economy measurement and disclosure frameworks that can help you to monitor progress.
This study from Sitra can help you to better understand the potential that circular practices have on conserving and restoring nature. This first-of-its-kind study is based on a thorough scoping phase, an extensive literature review, state-of-the-art modelling, and consultations with more than 160 experts outside of Sitra and Vivid Economics. It analyses and quantifies the role the circular economy can play in halting and reversing global biodiversity loss by 2035 through policy- and business-led interventions in four key sectors; identifies the most effective interventions; and highlights key economic opportunities.
This primer provides a helpful high-level summary of the circular economy that will benefit executives, board members, and other business leaders. It explains the issue of linear, take-make-waste models of modern economies; highlights the business risks of inaction, such as shifting consumer demands, regulatory changes, and supply chain disruptions; and highlights a broad range of opportunities for circular economy adherents.
This free tool was developed to help businesses accelerate their transition towards a circular economy. Using a simple, objective, quantitative framework, the CTI Tool structures data, calculates outcomes, and generates reports, enabling you to improve your understanding of circularity and set more ambitious targets.
The Biomimicry Institute can help you to understand how to solve problems in line with nature by using insights from nature. Dedicated to sharing the lessons of nature to create a healthier planet, the Institute's platform features several resources, including its flagship resource the Biomimicry Toolbox. This toolbox introduces the foundational concepts of biomimicry and outlines a six-step biomimicry design process. Learning from nature and applying those lessons will be broadly applicable to all those working to address sustainability challenges, from product design to marketing.
This toolkit can help owners, investors, and developers to better align their portfolios with sustainability regulations and laws and move beyond. Developed in partnership between the Ellen Macarthur Foundation and Arup, it was created to minimise building waste, keep products and materials in use for longer, and reduce emissions, and all from the start of the building design process. The toolkit features a circular design framework that includes an array of strategies and actions for relevant real estate projects, as well as a library of case studies.
This trio of info sheets from the Biomimicry Institute can help you to better understand - and to ask more informed questions about - the biodegradability of textiles. The first info sheet explains the concept of biodegradation and the role of environmental conditions in biodegradation, and puts biodegradation into context in the circular economy. The second and third info sheets explore biodegradation and toxicity of natural and manmade cellulosic textiles and synthetic textiles, respectively, including the impact of dyes, finishes, and treatments on biodegradability and toxicity.
The momentum to step away from the linear take-make-waste economic model is growing, and transparency and alignment are crucial to establishing a common language across industries and governments. The Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) was created to address this gap. This resource introduces an objective and quantitative framework that can support businesses of all industries, sizes, value chain positions, and geographies to measure and communicate their circularity in a consistent way.
This guide is divided into two parts. The first part explains the CTI framework and methodology; highlights the need for circular metrics and the use of CTI; explains the CTI process cycle; and explains how to get started. The second part is the CTI User manual, which outlines seven process steps for performing an assessment.
WBCSD has also created sector-specific guidance, such as for electronic devices, buildings, and fashion and textiles.
Circular Transition Indicators V4.0 – Metrics for business, by business
WBCSD has also created CTI case studies to support you
Circular Transition Indicators (CTI): Sector Guidance – Electronics devices
Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) Sector Guidance – Buildings
Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) Sector Guidance – Fashion and Textile
This simple guide from Google provides helpful and inspiring insights into how they have approached recycled materials and solutions they have used in their products. This includes insights related to post consumer mechanically recycled polycarbonate; post industrial, chemically recycled polybutylene terephthalate; recycled polyester in softgoods; recycled aluminum and stainless steel; and recycled critical minerals. This guide will be especially beneficial to sustainability, R&D, operations, and engineering professionals.
Launched by the Environmental Defense Fund, the Supply Chain Solutions Center is a “crowdsourced” knowledge resource hub. The library’s current focus is on agriculture, energy, chemicals, waste, forests, and freight, and provides sustainability resources, best practices, case studies, reports, executive interviews, strategy templates, webcasts, and news that can support you in learning about these issues, assessing risk, setting goals, measuring, and reporting. The Solutions Center also brings together sustainability and supply chain professionals, creating a space where platform users can connect and collaborate with other experts.
This comprehensive resource from UNEP can help you to understand how resources are essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and tackling the polycrisis. Building on more than 15 years of work by the International Resource Panel, including scientific assessments and inputs from countries, stakeholders in the field, and regional experts, the report illustrates how rising trends in global resource use have continued or accelerated, and maps out how demand for resources is expected to continue increasing in the coming decades. It explains why sustainable resource management is urgently needed, and highlights the transformative actions that the global community must immediately pursue. This resource will be beneficial to a wide spectrum of sustainability, procurement, and strategy professionals.
This comprehensive report from the OECD presents global projections of materials use and their environmental consequences, providing a quantitative outlook to 2060 at the global, sectoral, and regional level. It explains the economic drivers determining the decoupling of economic growth and materials use; provides projections of economic baseline scenarios, economic drivers of materials use, primary materials use, and of recycling and secondary materials; and features case studies on demand and supply risks for specific materials. This report will be especially beneficial to sustainability and procurement professionals.
Billions of people benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, inspiration, and more. 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions of people worldwide, and more than 10,000 wild species are directly harvested for food. This report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) can help you to understand how the global biodiversity crisis threatens the contributions of these species to humanity, and provides insights, analysis, and tools to establish more sustainable use of wild species of plants, animals, fungi, and algae around the world.
This report identifies five broad categories of ‘practices’ in the use of wild species: fishing; gathering; logging; terrestrial animal harvesting (including hunting); and non-extractive practices, such as observing. For each practice, it then examines specific ‘uses’ for these materials; identifies trends and drivers of change; explores policies, practices, and tools to effect positive change; and examines a range of possible future scenarios for the use of wild species.
Buyers of recycled plastic generally do not understand the origin of the material, or the conditions under which it is collected and processed. This framework developed by the Circulate Initiative – with contributions from more than 40 organisations representing waste pickers, companies, and civil society – can help you extend your supply chain due diligence to the source of recycled plastic. The framework has two parts: part one introduces harmonised themes, definitions, and indicators, and part two explains how to implement the framework. This framework will be most useful to supply chain and sustainability practitioners seeking to advance inclusive and equitable sourcing practices for recycled plastics.