The circular transition is building, but online platform innovation will take the transition to scale
Peter Evans, 2023 – Chief Strategy Officer, McFadyen Digital and Co-Chair, MIT Platform Strategy Summit.”How to scale the circular economy” Circular: For Resource and Waste Professionals. 9/25, https://www.circularonline.co.uk/features/how-to-scale-the-circular-economy/ //DH
Momentum is building to advance a more circular economy globally. Many major companies, start-ups, cities, countries, and international organisations have all embraced circular economy principles and launched supporting initiatives.
Venture capital and private equity investment into circular economy businesses has grown since 2020, indicating growing commercial interest. Multilateral organisations, such as the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), World Economic Forum and United Nations (UN) all have major initiatives to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
This momentum stems from concerns over resource scarcity and sustainability, as well as shifting consumer demand and commercial interest in circular models that emphasise reuse, repair, and recycling.
However, there is still much more that needs to be done. Measures are needed to scale circular transactions, across a wide range of sectors, including apparel, electronics, plastics, machinery, EV batteries and commercial buildings.
Circular platforms
One way to ensure circular economy initiatives scale is through circular platforms.
By connecting buyers and sellers of underutilised assets, facilitating resale marketplaces, streamlining reverse logistics, providing data insights, and building circular economy communities, platforms can create digital infrastructure to advance the circular principles of reuse, repair, refurbishment, and recycling.
The connectivity, information exchange, material tracking and quality assurance enabled by platforms allow stakeholders to participate in circular activities like resource sharing, redistribution of used goods, and closed-loop material flows.
Platform business models have demonstrated the ability to successfully scale and achieve widespread adoption in a variety of industries and use cases, enabling connection and exchange among large networked user bases. Key factors like network effects, discovery engines, and buyer and seller aggregation have facilitated growth.