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Policy
at today? And how would you find out what you're doing is making any difference?
To address this gap, 26 companies of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) have jointly developed a universal and consistent framework to measure circularity. The Circular Transition Indicators (CTI) is a simple, objective and quantitative framework that can be applied to businesses of all industries, sizes, value chain positions and geographies.
Built by business, for business, the CTI gives companies a common language to use for internal decision-making and communicating to key stakeholders. The CTI, and its free online tool that supports and guides companies through the process, will be launched at the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos this January.
Circular economy
The world's population, and its demand for raw materials, is growing. However, we’re beginning to confront the reality of our resource limits. Balsa wood, phosphorous and even sand are all in the news recently for their resourcing constraints.
At the other end of the lifecycle, waste and pollution are now an urgent global priority. Global annual waste is expected to grow to 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050. Without improvements across the global economy, solid waste-related emissions are anticipated to increase to 2.6 billion tons of CO2, equivalent by 2050, equivalent to one-third of the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels in 2017.
Much of this is due to the rapid growth in the global population and expansion of the middle class, particularly in emerging markets. These forces bolster the estimated total demand for resources by 2050 to 130 billion tonnes, an overuse of the Earth’s resources by more than 400%. This presents not just the risk running out of resources, but with resource growth and extraction also representing around half of our global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it will be a challenge to get the global carbon footprint under control. Given these numbers, a shift from the linear industrial system to one that closes resource loops and is regenerative by design is not only urgent but also imperative.
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The circular economy presents businesses with a strategy for identifying opportunities and mitigating risk. Because the concept rests on the principle of eliminating waste and optimising resource use, the circular economy also harmonises economic objectives with environmental ones. The appeal of decoupling economic growth from resource consumption lies in how it harmonises financial opportunity with a company’s sustainability objectives.
Companies have also found other benefits to adopting circular strategies, such as improving customer relationships and employee satisfaction. Some companies are beginning to make their circularity goals a matter of public record, while others have tied their executive compensation to them. Until now, there has been no common measure of circularity that can be used for investors, customers and other stakeholders.
Metrics by business, for business
Recognising the absence of a common approach, WBCSD convened 26 global companies through Factor10, its flagship
circular economy project, to develop the Circular Transition Indicators (CTI).
Chaired by Royal DSM, over the past 18 months the companies have worked together to draft, pilot and enhance the first version of the CTI.
The objective was to develop an objective, quantitative and flexible framework, enabling companies to take a consistent and structured approach to identifying risks and opportunities and prioritising action.
The CTI is simple, comprehensive, complementary to a company’s existing sustainability efforts and applicable to all companies, regardless of their industry, value-chain position or geography.
Central to the CTI is a self-assessment that determines a company’s circular performance, based on mass flows through the company. A company’s performance is evaluated at the different stages of a product life cycle: procurement, design and recovery. In addition to evaluating the circular performance of a production site, business unit or the whole company, the CTI provides insight into the overall resource use optimisation and illustrates the link
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