Circular economy business models

In addition to energy and material efficiency, your company should promote the comprehensive development of operating methods to support both environmental objectives and long-term economic profitability. You can utilise circular economy business models in this. 

The core idea is to identify opportunities for your company that simultaneously combine both environmental and business perspectives:

• Renewable and recycled energy and raw materials: Could your company use more renewable or recycled raw materials and sustainably produced renewable energy in your own processes and products in place of fossil energy?
• Product as a Service models: Could your company offer products as a service, in which case the customer would pay for the right to use the products in a more close-knit and long-term customer relationship than the traditional sales-purchase model? 
• Increasing capacity and product utilisation rates: Could your company use digital platforms in new ways to raise and share different resources and product utilisation rates? 
• Lifecycle extension: Could your company provide more comprehensive repair, service and upgrade services for your products, or collect used products for refurbishment and resale?  
• Return and recycling: Could your company make use of the materials that have come to the end of their life cycle as raw materials for new products? For example, industrial symbioses in accordance with the FISS (Finnish Industrial Symbiosis System) operating model (in Finnish)Opens in a new window. allow companies to produce added value for each other by making efficient use of each other's side streams, saving both parties’ costs and also reducing harmful environmental impacts.

Read up on circular economy business models for the manufacturing industry.Opens in a new window.