Circularity indicators for companies

In the last article "Circularity at company level", we discussed what circularity means for companies and how companies can contribute to the broader Circular Economy while benefiting financially from this innovation.

Methods for pursuing circularity focus on three key areas:

“Closing the loop” or returning resources back into the system to reduce the need for virgin material extraction (e.g., recycling)

“Slowing the loop” or prolonging the lifespan of products to reduce consumption (e.g., through repair)

“Narrowing the loop” or increasing resource efficiency to create with as little impact as possible (e.g., energy efficient machinery)

INDICATORS

To measure progress toward these goals, companies can establish their own indicators and KPIs for circularity, such as Duni Group, that EFF is a part of, which measures virgin plastic and FSC-certified material usage for its Circular at Scale initiative.

The following graphic shows several of the available tools and systems for measuring different elements of circularity for companies. Some, such as GRI 306 focus on reporting and can be applied universally to any user, whereas others, such as CIRCelligence, which are more tailor-made to the needs of the particular client.