Circular Economy

To cut carbon emissions and reduce pressure on nature, businesses must embrace circular economy solutions.

Innovating towards a circular economy to sustain and repair the planet

In a circular economy, products, services, and infrastructure are designed to maximise value and minimise waste. This reduces demand for precious primary resources, lowers carbon emissions, and regenerates our natural environment. There are direct business benefits too. These include better supply chain management, reducing business risk relating to environmental damage and, finding new commercial opportunities.

BITC is working on supporting innovation in several ways:

Joint Statements of Demand: using purchasing power to create a circular economy

Are you looking to reduce your supply-chain-related emissions, your impact on nature and your costs as well as support innovation and investment?

Business in the Community (BITC) is leading an exciting initiative as part of the Interreg North Sea Region ProCirc Project, creating Joint Statements of Demand (JSDs) for office furniture, electric vehicle chargers (ESVs) and professional clothing. A JSD is a shared set of asks that procurers commit to include in future tenders.

A JSD approach recognises that collective purchasing power can drive innovation and investment, accelerating a shift to a sustainable future. A future that BITC sees as a net zero, nature-positive economy where people and nature thrive.

JOINT STATEMENTS OF DEMAND – FIND OUT MORE ON HOW YOU CAN BE INVOLVED

Key facts

Approximately 45% of global emissions come from industry, agriculture and land-use, which can be reduced by circular solutions.¹
61% of the public would like to see large businesses using less energy and materials to create and deliver products and services.²
Only 16% of Responsible Business Tracker^® respondents embed the circular economy into their strategy.³

About Business in the Community’s circular economy campaign

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We work with businesses along key value chains to solve problems collaboratively and enable circularity. By 2023 our ambition is to equip 60 businesses with the skills and knowledge to adopt circular principles in their procurement, increasing the demand for circular solutions.

Our Circular Economy Taskforce steers our circular economy campaign. A group of chief executive officers (CEOs) and other senior executives delivering a high-impact programme bringing the circular economy to life. Current areas of focus for the Circular Economy Taskforce include:

Collaboration along value chains and across sectors to enable circularity

We are currently developing our ambitious Circular Business Models Revolution Project. We will bring businesses together to identify barriers, solve problems, and explore business opportunities to enable circularity along value chains. These range from designing and selling products with longer lives, to alternative retail models like servitisation and leasing as well as online resale.

We welcome your participation. Partnering and sponsorship opportunities are available. If you are a BITC member contact your Relationship Manager for further information. If you are not part of The Prince’s Responsible Business Network, learn more about BITC membership.

Taking climate action through a circular economy approach

Businesses can take climate action through a circular economy approach, reducing their carbon emissions. Tackling emissions relating to the products they sell as well as the products and materials they buy from their suppliers, can have a huge impact. Scope 3 emissions, as they are known, tend to represent the most significant proportion, more than 70%, of a company’s carbon footprint⁴. Taking a circular economy approach can help reduce this figure.

Resources to help you take action

Report: Going Circular for Net Zero: in your hands. This report outlines key enablers and levers crucial to achieving a circular economy for net zero. It begins by examining the drivers for change, collating insight from over 35 organisations across various sectors.

Factsheet: Accelerating to Net-Zero with the Circular Economy. Download this factsheet to find out more on defining the circular economy, the lifecycle phases of a product, redesigning business models, practical steps to adopt circular approaches and read a glossary.

Taking a circular approach to procurement

Adopting a circular approach to procurement allows businesses to become more sustainable while delivering business benefits. Circular procurement focuses on closing energy and material loops within supply chains, creating demand for example for remanufactured goods or reuse of materials. It creates long-term value by focusing not just on single transactions, but on the products and services suppliers offer their clients.

During 2022 Business in the Community began developing joint statements of demand as part of a collaborative procurement project across northern Europe. Procurers are co-developing these, setting out their future circular asks for three specific product categories. This will signal a shared demand to the market, creating the basis for suppliers to invest and innovate to develop circular products to meet that demand.

If you would like to participate in a circular procurement pilot, or be part of a joint statement of demands, contact your Relationship Manager if you are a member of BITC. If you are not part of The Prince’s Responsible Business Network, learn more about BITC membership.

Resources to help you take action

Factsheet: Circular Procurement. This factsheet contains six simple steps for any business beginning its circular procurement journey.
Factsheet: How Can Corporate Procurement Tackle the Climate Crisis? This factsheet sets out how the role of the modern Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) and procurement leaders can support their businesses to act on climate change.
Report: Improving the Sustainability of Professional Clothing sets out a framework of principles which procurers can adopt to select more circular options for workwear.
Toolkit: The Business Case for Circular Procurement. This toolkit takes a closer look at some of the product categories organisations should address, gives practical steps on how to implement the principles in your business and makes the business case for doing so. It was written by the global energy and environmental consultancy Ricardo Energy & Environment, members of Business in the Community’s Circular Economy Taskforce.

Creating circular buildings and offices

BITC’s circular office initiative brings businesses together to learn, share, and try new ideas to bring the circular economy to life in their workplaces. It is about changing how we design, use and operate to eliminate waste and create more efficient, resilient spaces. These spaces will contribute to the long term sustainability of businesses and the wider economy and the positive wellbeing of occupants.

Resources to help you take action

Factsheet: The Circular Office: A sustainable approach to the places we work (BITC member only resource). This factsheet call on organisations to sign up for the Business in the Community (BITC) circular office initiative.
Report: The Circular Office Guide. The Circular Office Guide shows organisations how to retain the value of materials, by keeping them in circulation and eliminating waste in their workplaces. It contains useful information for everyone involved with offices including landlords, tenants, property managers, facilities managers, procurement teams and employees
Toolkit: How To Deliver A Carbon Friendly Workplace Transition. A guide for businesses on delivering a carbon friendly workplace transition, post-COVID-19, that limits waste, protects the environment and benefits employee health and wellbeing.

Measuring and reporting circularity

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting is rapidly becoming mainstream practice for UK businesses. While several circular economy reporting frameworks exist, there is not yet a clear and common approach. This has proved to be a barrier to reporting being fully adopted. With the backing of BITC’s Circular Economy Taskforce, BITC has developed a useful set of metrics for measuring circular economy in organisations, and what streamlined but meaningful reporting should look like.
Our insights can be found in our How Circular?: Measuring and Reporting Circular Economy in Business report.

Business leadership on transformative change towards a circular economy

Our members show leadership through showcasing business best practice and thought leadership, as well as convening peer-to-peer learning sessions.

Business in the Community enables members to be at the forefront of creating a circular economy in the UK. We support businesses to share examples of how they are taking action and bringing the circular economy to life in their organisations.

Resources to help you take action

A Guide to Recycling, Waste Management and Resource Productivity. This guide sets out the opportunities that rethinking resource and waste transformation can bring, explaining how to eliminate avoidable waste and turn ‘waste’ into ‘wealth’. For any business that recognises its responsibility to change, this is the starting point.

Case studies

We encourage businesses to share examples of how they are taking action and bringing the circular economy to life in their organisations.

Next steps

Join the Circular Economy Taskforce and help steer our work. BITC members can speak to their Relationship Manager to find out more.
Take part in the Responsible Business Tracker® to assess your starting point, create and deliver and measure progress on your circular economy strategy with our advisory support. BITC members can contact their Relationship Manager for further information. If you are not a BITC member contact our Advisory Service Team.