Circular economy opportunities

In our September/October edition we looked at forthcoming legislation around sustainability. Understandably some people are fearful of the obligations that such legislation will place on them, but if you are a reputable manufacturer or supplier of durable, resource-efficient goods, with a clean supply chain and low-carbon operations, upcoming legislation will benefit your business, writes Elaine Butler.

Capturing value from the 5Rs
The holy grail of circularity is reuse, often achieved through resale or rental, and supported by repair, refurbishment and remanufacture. This is a sea-change from how most businesses operate and it can seem like an unwanted burden. That is until you consider the new streams of income that they can offer.

Reuse through resale and rental
To date, most resale and rental has been delivered by third parties. As the circular economy matures it will become increasingly difficult to generate profits from unit sales and so we expect to see more reselling and rental by companies that heretofore would have only dealt in direct sales of new merchandise.

Resale and rental are often dismissed as the poor cousin of virgin goods, but wrongly so. Not only does it provide a new way to generate income, it also offers opportunities for repeated engagement with customers, protection of your brand, the recapturing of residual value in pre-owned goods and a chance to discover and develop new customers and markets.

See PDF of full article at Circular Economy Opportunities edit