Lead the Circular Economy with CIRCelligence by BCG

Humanity is consuming Earth’s natural resources faster than the planet can regenerate them. We already see the impact of our actions through climate change, damaged ecosystems, and declining biodiversity.

Our planet’s resources sustain our current wealth and underpin each company’s ability to generate value for its shareholders. If we continue to drain these resources at an unsustainable pace, we will undermine the foundation of our global economy.

Developed by our Sustainability experts and BCG Omnia, CIRCelligence by BCG delivers the data and insights that top managers need to move beyond symbolic lighthouse projects and lead their companies toward a prosperous, sustainable, and resilient future as part of the circular economy.

Modern economies largely follow a “take-make-waste” approach in which resources are extracted, used in production, and then discarded. By contrast, circular economies are regenerative by design since they are based on the continuous cycling of resources within a closed loop.

The circular economy offers a sustainable way forward by decoupling economic growth from resource extraction. In circular economies, entire product life cycles are designed around the circular flow of resources—from the raw materials that make up the product, to the resources used in the production process, to an end-of-life strategy for recovering, and ultimately reusing, spent resources.

To develop a circular economy, companies must go further than redesigning individual products. They also need to revamp their entire business models and start changing existing economic systems.

The underlying innovations needed to enable the collection, recovery, sales, and use of secondary materials to power the circular economy—plus the value of the materials themselves—could stimulate massive economic growth.

Despite the economic and environmental promise of the circular economy, many companies are still struggling to move beyond isolated activities with low financial impact and implement more comprehensive and integrated changes that improve shareholder value.

The CIRCelligence by BCG framework shows organizations how to make circular economy concepts an integral part of overall corporate strategy.

CIRCelligence offers a three-pronged approach:

• Create transparency with a proprietary calculator that generates quantitative and qualitative insights into status quo levels of circularity across all the steps in a company’s value chain. At each step, CIRCelligence evaluates the flow and value of resources entering the company (known as inflow), the duration of resource usage (slow flow), and the types of resources that leave the company’s boundaries (outflow), as well as qualitative aspects.
• Develop an actionable roadmap by setting realistic circularity goals and then providing recommendations to reach those goals and embed circular thinking across the organization.
• Implement key initiatives to achieve circularity targets. At the same time, define KPIs and set targets in order to track the success of high-priority circularity initiatives and communicate their progress to such stakeholders as investors, consumers, and governments.

• Increased Top-Line Growth. CIRCelligence identifies circular activities with positive business cases that can help companies attain new markets, reach new market segments, and increase market share.
• Stronger Customer Relations. CIRCelligence suggests ways for companies to make their business models more circular. Such circularity often entails more customer interaction, which generates a wealth of data that companies can use to strengthen their customer relationships.
• Improved Internal Efficiency and Reduced Risks. By identifying opportunities to use fewer resources, as well as strategies to circulate those resources multiple times, CIRCelligence helps companies improve operational efficiency while reducing their exposure to long, fragile supply chains.
• Staying Ahead of the Regulatory Curve. The European Commission has already released its second Circular Economy Action Plan. CIRCelligence enables companies to quantify their circularity ambitions and take an active role as early movers in the development of circular economy regulations and solutions.

We transform value chains into value cycles by helping clients develop holistic solutions that embed circular strategy into core business strategies. Our circular economy experts include: