Hi everyone and welcome back to the 11th blog post of A Circular Victory! Last week, we talked about the changing revenue models in a Circular Economy. Specifically, we focused on the increasing importance of recurring revenue and the advantages that this type of revenue has for companies. By approaching the Circular Economy from this point, we have the ability to highlight the economical advantages, rather than the sustainable ones. You can read the 10th post here.
This week, we will be talking about the importance of building the right ecosystem for an evolution towards a Circular Economy.
Creating the right ecosystem
As we have discussed previously in blog post 6, the post about change drivers, there is not just one player who will help us to evolve to a Circular Economy. In order to be able to develop new logistics, ways of manufacturing, business models and more, we need to make an effort to get the ecosystem right. There are lots of different players needed within that ecosystem, from sustainably conscious consumers to policy makers. Today, I am going to highlight the two areas that I think will be the most important to get right to speed up the development of the Circular Economy. Of course, there are plenty of other areas that will be required to be
Finance
We cannot underestimate the role that finance is going to play in this transition. In the economic landscape of today, getting investment is essential in growing your business. This will be the same for Circular businesses too. Once they have come up with a product/service and they will usually need financing to bring it to the market.
We are already increasingly seeing the interest of financing institutions, ranging from private equity funds to stock traders, in sustainability. This evolution isn’t surprising, as stock traders have seen sustainable stocks outperform the market in recent years. It is important that investors keep realizing the importance they can play in the transition to sustainability AND the positive returns that will mean for them.
Academics
When I talk about academics here, I mean both academic research as well as general and further education. Academics is often the basis for innovations and transitions to new and innovative systems. This can either happen through research that is being done and being applied to the market or through educating a new generation of leaders and activists. Education and research lays a foundation that the rest of our society is built on.
A transition to a Circular Economy is no different. Research is required in all areas of the economy. This will allow us to get a good view of how the Circular Economy can be implemented, where it needs to be supported and to show the urgency and necessity of the Circular Economy to all the parties involved.
Additionally, we also need well educated people to help all of this research become reality. We need engineers, lawyers, teachers, designers, policy makers and so on. We need all types of highly educated people to carry out this vision of Circularity.
So in my opinion, it all starts with academics. We need to invest in educating the youth of our countries so that they can help us become Circular and (both economically and ecologically) sustainable. And if you are the youth of our country? The time is yours! This transition is so important and so far reaching that you certainly will have a role to play in it.