The Circular Economy

The Circular Economy is for Everyone

Here we highlight circularity at its grass roots and how it offers options to get ahead.  Whether you are at home, at work, travelling or enjoying leisure time there is something for everyone.


If you are looking for holistic guidance how to approach net zero in in your lifestyle bookmark this page, it is going to be very busy helping to highlight the four R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Renew.

Driven by Design

the three principles of the Circular Economy are:

  • Eliminate waste and pollution
  • Circulate products and materials (at their highest value)
  • Regenerate nature


Source: Ellen Macarthur Foundation

The Circular Revolution Debate is LIVE! 

Our generations, from Baby Boomers to GenZ are responsible for creating global pollution on catastrophic scales, but the paradox is our generations have learned at breakneck speed just how much damage we are doing to our planet. Will our descendants term our age the Circular Revolution, it seems perfectly reasonable that it may be. 


This page debates how each of us can do something to speed up the Circular Revolution. We are a phenomenon of our age, no matter where we live, the weight of public opinion is changing things, what we need to work on is how we can help; diversity is part of the answer. 


BSI offers online, on demand courses to help businesses understand the principles of Net Zero.  It advises how to implement more circular and sustainable practices within an organisation. Find out how here.***


Read the latest BDO Report May 2024 here where investments in the Circular Economy (CE) over 2023 are bucking the trend.  Total funding increased by 30% as M & A investments fell in the same period by 17%.


The report confirms consumers expect, in fact demand, that products  and services will have a sustainable source, a history, proof of legitimacy, transparency.  We are all consumers - we have a right to sustainability.

An insight into the amazing world we are only just getting to know – a world driven by design.

Hello and welcome to this insight into the rapidly emerging sustainable world. For the next few minutes, we will take you on a short journey into a world even more exciting than your simply incredible smart phone, can that be possible, absolutely.


Many of us remember the day Steve Jobs walked out onto the stage at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco California, iPhone in hand to say, "Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone."


I can see it now; and he was so very right, what happened next! We loved it, we flocked to stores to buy our very own slice of magic. You might wonder what on earth that has to do with sustainability.


Well, that's easy. Women are safer, we can call for help from where we are, work from home, shop on the internet, check our bank account, the sheer convenience of all that has removed the daily commute, the supermarket trip, parking on busy streets to pay a cheque into the bank. It has saved us valuable time, money, frustration, inconvenience, it is a lifestyle asset we simply cannot do without.


A smart phone represents the sustainable world at its very best and that is what we mean when we talk of truly astounding changes, happening right now, at the same speed as your little slice of magic sitting next to you, in your back pocket or propped up on its stand in your car.


In the sustainable world we call this spectacular leap the Circular Economy, or just CE for short. CE is about convenience. A fair few business people will be reading this, people who probably already know the four buzz words of CE: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Renew. They certainly do not find them heavy going; each of the four words creates new dimensions for their businesses to operate in, new markets, new products, better ways of doing things, and yes altogether a lot more convenient than the way we do things now. 


Let’s take a look at some of the things coming our way as CE drives design.


There are three corner stones to the Circular Economy, they are:


  •      Eliminate waste and pollution
  •      Circulate products and materials (at their highest value)
  • ·     Regenerate nature


Most of us think about waste as stuff we put in the bin. Experts see waste for example, as time to be programmed out of a process, or as a raw material for a new life cycle.


In that context wasted time burns unnecessary energy, polluting our atmosphere, and, if we design our products and services so that they can be split into reusable components then landfill operations, plastic pollution and so much more will just – disappear.

Many of us drive a car that we do not actually own, we don’t need to. Manufacturers, their retailers, and financiers have worked out a system that ensures your four wheeled pride and joy, when you don’t want it anymore, is actually part of an advanced network that circulates products and materials at their highest values. 


The next few years will see yet more exponential advances across hundreds of household items, that’s CE working behind the scenes, but what we see is convenience, our lives made easier.


Ordnance Survey will tell you that there will be something like 20,000 changes every day in the built and natural environment across the British Isles. Flying from the Scilly Isles to the Shetland Isles for 9 months in every year the OS Flying Team record around 2 gigabytes per second over a normal six-hour day. Within 3 years all of Great Britain's natural and built environment is completely refreshed.


The detail finds its way into every OS map. Their work, highly advanced, so in depth, its accuracy is measured in millimetres is saving agriculture, farmers, landowners, industry, and local authorities millions often billions, regenerating nature as they go!

Yes, OS really are our eyes in the sky.


Naturally Sustainable will continue to highlight how CE is making real differences in our lives. But we can all help save our planet. Put quite simply, let the designers create the convenience, but it is we consumers who, if we understand what is happening around us, will accelerate NET ZERO into a reality. 

Proof the Circular Economy is going Mainstream?

The British Standards Institute is a global leader in standards for any and all sectors. They ask of people in business:
"Is your organization ready for the journey to Net Zero and to take Climate Action?" Click here to learn more***

Climate change say BSI is the defining challenge of our lifetime and the transition to net zero will be the decisive event of our generation. It is for that very reason why we work alongside the BSI Training Academy, the very place that aspirational businesses can learn how BSI Tools and Standards will help them along this vital journey.


Chris Parsons Director, Sustainability at BDO offers an insight into the accelerating trends in UK manufacturing with a stark warning that one in four manufacturing businesses will cease to exist by 2034 if they continue to operate linear business models.

Key Findings


Key Findings #1


The Popularity of Sustainability using e-Commerce as the Measure 


The most recent figures published by Statista  advise that the United Kingdom (UK) has the most advanced e-commerce market in Europe. In 2023, the country is expected to have had nearly 60 million e-commerce users — leaving only a minority of the population as non-digital buyers.


Statista indicate e-commerce in the UK in 2023 was 133 billion GBP, accounting for 38% of all retail trade. By far the largest sector in e-commerce was fashion which happens to be one of the world's greatest polluters with poor trading practices.


The circular economy, sustainable products and processes are prominent in multiples of expressions. If you buy online look for proven sustainability


Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash

Driven by Design, the three principles of the Circular Economy are:

  • Eliminate waste and pollution
  • Circulate products and materials (at their highest value)
  • Regenerate nature

Source: Ellen Macarthur Foundation

Key Findings #2


Around the world investors have defined products or services they see as key in the Circular Economy.


Circular design – a  product, process, service or business model that has been designed to directly deliver or facilitate circularity.

Circular input – a product, process or service that is produced or delivered using sustainable inputs including those where legacy linear raw materials have been replaced by circular alternatives.

Data and consultancy – data that is gathered, analysed and interpreted to allow businesses and consumers to increase the sustainability and circularity of their decisions.

Material recovery – a process that produces or facilitates the production of energy, product 

or material from waste. 

PaaS – a business model allowing customers to consume products on a temporary and flexible basis, reducing the quantity of products required in the economy.

Recover, refurbish, re-use – a business model designed to extend asset life through refurbishment, repair and maintenance or allow component asset parts to be recovered and re-used. 

Smart cities – the use of different types of technology and sensors to collect data to manage assets, resources and services more efficiently.

Source: BDO


Key Findings #3


Circular Economy by Sector


Industrial and Manufacture  - 35% of all CE Investments for the third year in a row accounting for over one third of all investments with an increase in value to over £400m where average disclosed deals ranged between £6.7 - £12.2m. Extracting minerals from waste generated the largest proportion equating to 30% of all investments in the sector. Another key theme was technology and models that prolong the lifespan of assets.


Retail, Consumer and Leisure - a challenging market has meant this sector remained flat in 2023 accounting for just 16% of all deals. Investors are understandably cautious but high quality innovation increased capital invested by 50% with average capital deployed exceeding 40%.  Product as a Service (PaaS) accounted for 31% of all investments in the sector.


Food and Drink - investments in the sector have focused on businesses producing more sustainable food systems and more sustainable ingredients. Total investments in the year were up 54.5% on 2022 with around 70% of all deals in new or replacement ingredients.


Technology Media and Telecom (TMT) - more than 25% of all investments went into TMT innovations with massive capital investments exceeding £400m. Investments centred on resource optimisation, product design and supply chain transparency.


Life Sciences - This high-tec area has been making good inroads into investment capital with an overall increase of 64% in deals over the previous year. Biodegradable or bio-based innovations accounted for 65% of all deal volume in the sector.

Source: BDO

Aggregated Estimates of the rate of adoption of Circularity 

Naturally Sustainable are indebted to BDO for their concise reporting of investments in the UK circular economy in 2023. 


BDO report total disclosed investment of £1.3bn represented 50% annual growth year on year with average disclosed deal size increasing from £9m to £11m. As investment specialists they see the growth in the CE market as  considerable achievement given the decrease in Merger and Acquisitions private investment over the same period.


Our business is that of research in an area we have known at strategic level since the late nineties. Yes CE has been around that long!


There is precious little data available in a readable format coming out of 2023. Globally many observers report a lot of positive interest but not enough real investment activity.


We can strongly recommend BDO to anyone interested in data, quality information and trends in the Circular Economy.

A you ready to go circular We’re here to help!

We are partnered with the British Standards Institute Training Academy.  Your first positive step could be read how the Academy can help your business. Click Here to find out more.

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