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This collection features a selection of inspiring examples of the circular economy, compiled in the context of the Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains programme (SWITCH).

Launched in 2020, SWITCH is a five-year initiative that assists EU multinational companies and their suppliers from developing countries to switch to more circular economy approaches and practices in three selected value chains: [Plastic Packaging](https://knowledge-hub.circle-lab.com/switchtocircular/search?collections=832%3D0&framework_elements__5=111), [Textile & Garments](https://knowledge-hub.circle-lab.com/switchtocircular/search?collections=832%3D0&framework_elements__5=99), and ICT and Electronics.

The overall objective of SWITCH is to support the “transformation towards a circular economy”, and to contribute to sustainable growth, low carbon and climate resilient development, decent jobs creation, and a safer, healthier and pollution-free environment.

SWITCH is co-funded by the European Union and the Government of Finland, and implemented by UNIDO, in collaboration with Chatham House, Circle Economy, and the European Investment Bank.
Learn more at www.switchtocircular.eu

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Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains

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This collection is being created to regroup all case studies related to the packaging industry (CAT purpose)

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Packaging collection

Business case

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Producing and providing leisure and personal products and services for consumers, such as cleaning products, sports equipment and toys, personal and beauty care products, as well as domestic and personal services such as caretaking, cleaning, hairdressing and other beauty treatment, funeral and related activities

Personal Products and Services

Providing goods on the Internet, through mail order, or television, or providing goods in stores, including apparel, electronics, furniture, food and drug, etc.

Retail

Use digital, online platforms and technologies that provide insights to track and optimise resource use, strengthen connections between supply chain actors, and enable the implementation of circular models



Incorporate digital technology

Enacting measures that optimise material use such as 3D printing, etc.

Material efficiency

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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 The public DNV standard provides a best practice to certify the source and authenticity (Chain of Custody) of abandoned plastic and build trust in new products made from reclaimed plastic.  The problem of plastic garbage in our hydrosphere (oceans, rivers and lakes) is massive. Solving it requires ground-breaking technologies, significant efforts and resources. Moreover, extracting the plastic from oceans and rivers is only the first step in addressing one of the biggest threats to our world’s waters. There are currently trillions of pieces of plastic in our oceans with an estimated 8 million pieces added every day. Success hinges on the ability to extract more plastic at a greater scale and higher speed.The standardDNV’s Chain of Custody Standard for Plastics Retrieved in the Hydrosphere sets forth requirements to assure the traceability and integrity of reclaimed plastic from any body of water. The product certification provides proof of compliance. Organizations can share with confidence the source of the material and that it has not been mixed with any other components after extraction from a specific location.The standard covers three main components:Material integrity: Material gathered from the specified body of water has not been mixed with material from other sources before being manufactured into a new product.Traceability: Location, integrity, mass and use of the plastic is made traceable from water to shore and as part of a new product.Systemic approach: Management system in place that enables full traceability of material characteristics along the supply chain.The standard has been developed in partnership with The Ocean Cleanup, who has been the first to apply it and seek certification for its reclaimed plastic from The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. However, the standard is public and can be followed by any organization retrieving plastic from the hydrosphere, i.e. oceans, rivers or lakes.BenefitsProvide proof of your plastic’s source and authenticity (material integrity) certified by an independent party.Differentiate your reclaimed plastic from that of less serious players.Allow anyone to trace the plastic back to its extraction site and view its onward journey.Create a level of transparency that enables customers to trust that their purchases really help make an ocean, river or lake cleaner from plastic waste.How to get certified?When an organization has implemented the appropriate processes to meet the standard’s criteria and agreed scope for its extracted plastic, DNV as an independent third party can certify the plastic. This product certification provides proof that the reclaimed plastic comes from the specific body of water indicated, has not been mixed with other materials, and is the actual material used in a new product, if this is its final purpose.To trace the plastic’s source and assure material integrity, the scope covers the entire value chain and life cycle:Harvest and ExtractionTransport and SortingRecycling and TestingManufacturing and ShippingBased upon the location and value chain complexity, DNV auditors will mix physical audits, visual inspection and digital tools to collect the data needed to certify the traceability and authenticity of the reclaimed plastic.Photo: The Ocean Cleanup 

 The plastic turned sunglasses made from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been certified by DNV GL so buyers can be certain of both origin and authenticity.    The certification of the sunglass frames has been done to requirements in the chain of custody standard for plastics retrieved from the hydrosphere. This is a public standard that can be used by any organization to certify the traceability and material integrity of plastic reclaimed from oceans, rivers and lakes.“Extracting plastic is only the first step in addressing a serious threat to our oceans and rivers. Turning trash into treasures is critical to fund further cleanup. With trillions of pieces of plastic in our oceans, a dramatic scaling of extraction is needed. Certification builds trust into the authenticity of the reclaimed plastic and new products made from it,” says Luca Crisciotti, CEO of DNV GL-Business Assurance.Third party certification to the standard helps organizations prove to customers the source of the material and that it has not been mixed with any other components after extraction before manufactured into a new product. And that the overall weight of the plastic captures remains somewhat constant. It also ensures that that the plastic can be traced all the way back to the location where it was extracted. Companies who want to be certified, must first implement processes and system to meet the requirements of the standard.Extracting the necessary amounts of plastic requires ground-breaking technologies, significant efforts and resources. For customers who want to contribute and buy products made with reclaimed plastic, certification by an independent third party assures them that the product is in fact authentic.“We started working with the Ocean Cleanup almost two years ago to build a thorough understanding of the process and need before designing the standard. For everything to come full circle and finally see the garbage turn into a pair of sunglasses made from certified reclaimed plastic is extremely rewarding,” says Luca Crisciotti.Photo: The Ocean Cleanup 

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Lush Retail Ltd. is a British cosmetics retailer which is headquartered in Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1995 by trichologist Mark Constantine, his wife Mo Constantine and five other founders. Lush has 951 stores globally.

Lush

UK-based Lush Cosmetics tasked themselves with creating a waterless, signage and package-free shop. Lush looked towards their tech R&amp;D team (their “Tech Warriors”) to create digital solutions to accomplish this feat with their&nbsp;Lush Labs&nbsp;app.

Lush Labs App - removing the need for packaging and labels through digital innovation

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Starter Kit collection

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

Impacts on the social fabric of the community and well-being of the individuals and families.

Social Impact

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Extracting resources and processing them to produce materials for use bysociety

Materials and Fuels

Producing and providing business and consumer goods and services

Goods and Services

Producing basic and specialty chemicals, inks, agricultural chemical such as fertilisers and pesticides, plastics including packaging, and rubber

Chemical and Plastic

Work together throughout the supply chain, internally within organisations and with the public sector and communities to increase transparency and create joint value

Team up to create joint value

Engage and guide customers and consumers to ensure circular use of products

Customer / consumer collaboration

Engaging in discussions with customers to educate and raise awareness of the circular economy and explore circular opportunities together

Customer dialogue, marketing 






 
 
We’re serious about reducing our impact on the earth, so we’re always looking at our packaging and processes to see how we can improve. From 100% post-consumer plastic in our bottles and pots to biodegradable packing peanuts, here are 10 things you might not know about our packaging.
1. Naked: Out of our all-year-round product range, 65% are sold naked, with no packaging, so zero-waste washing is absolutely possible.
2. Post-consumer plastic: Our products in pots and bottles are sold in 100% post-consumer plastic. Our plastic bottles can be recycled through your city’s recycling program, but save and return your black and clear pots to your local Lush store for…
3. Free face masks! Did you know you can return five clean black and clear pots to any Lush store in exchange for a free fresh face mask? We chip them down and remold them into new pots in a closed recycling loop.
4. Continuous improvements: In 2012, we made our clear bottles thinner by 10% to reduce our plastic usage. In 2016 alone, this saved almost 13,500 pounds of plastic!

Intergalactic Bath Bomb wrapped up in our plastic-free, industrially-compostable bag

5. Knot-wraps: In 2010, we phased out our giftwrapping service and introduced knot-wraps. These square scarves are made of organic cotton or a silky fabric made from recycled plastic bottles, and are a great green alternative to wrapping paper. (They make really cute accessories, too!)
6. Recyclable or reusable: Lush gifts come in fabric knot-wraps, recyclable cardboard boxes or reusable metal tins: no matter which one you receive, its packaging is recyclable or reusable. Our online orders are also packed in 100% recycled (and recyclable) cardboard boxes.
7. Our packing peanuts: We use plant-based packing peanuts to protect the products in our gifts and online orders. Unlike Styrofoam, these are 100% biodegradable: to dispose of them, just toss them in your compost.
8. Nope, that’s not plastic: Naked products in our gifts and online orders sent out from our Vancouver facility come in bags that look like plastic, but are made of 100% biodegradable cellophane. These bags allow naked products to arrive in the same beautiful condition as when they were made. We’re working to transition all our naked products that are wrapped in our Toronto facility to the same 100% industrially-compostable cellulose.
9. Forgot your bag? No worries! Our paper bags are made from 100% recycled paper or choose one of our 100% organic cotton canvas bags to carry your Lush goodies home, and reuse it again and again.
10. Our gift tags and inserts: Even the tags and inserts in our gifts, which have information about all of our products inside, are printed on 100% recycled paper.


Tagged as: 


Lush, a cosmetics company, has implemented a range of initiatives to reduce packaging pollution and promote sustainability. By offering "naked" packaging, using biodegradable and compostable materials, and promoting a recycling program, Lush is leading the way in sustainable packaging solutions in the cosmetics industry.

Lush is determined in tackling the packaging pollution problem

Account for the systems perspective during the design process, to use the right materials, to design for appropriate lifetime and to design for extended future use

Design for the future

Designing to reduce waste during production and use

Design out waste

Designing products so they produce as little waste as possible during production

Design for minimal waste

**Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns**

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The world is seriously off track in its effort to halve per-capita food waste and losses by 2030.The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on consumption and production patterns, with disruptions to global supply chains and changes in consumer behaviour. 

Responsible consumption and production must be an integral part of the recovery from the pandemic. 
But the global economy also needs to speed up the decoupling of economic growth from resource use by maximizing the socio-economic benefits of resources while minimizing their negative impacts. 

Reporting on corporate sustainability has tripled since the beginning of the SDG period, but the private sector will need to significantly improve reporting on activities that contribute to the SDGs. 

This primarily entails environmentally sound management of "toxic chemicals" A substantial use of chemicals is essential to meet the social and economic goals of the world community, and these can be used with a high degree of safety when best practices are followed.  Gross chemical contamination, with grave damage to human health, genetic structures reproductive outcomes, and the environment, has been continuing within some of the world's most important industrial areas, and restoration will require major investment as well as the development of new techniques.
Effective control of the generation, storage, treatment, recycling and reuse, transport, recovery and disposal of hazardous wastes is another similar challenge. 
In addition,  solid wastes include all domestic refuse and non-hazardous wastes such as commercial and institutional wastes, street sweepings construction debris, and, in some countries, human wastes. As hazardous waste is frequently intermixed with other waste, this poses particular management challenges.
Finally, this target ensures that radioactive waste is safely managed, transported, stored and disposed of, with a view to protecting human health and the environment. 

To deliver SDG12, it is crucial to implement policies that support the shift to sustainable practices and decouple economic growth from resource use.

Sources: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste)

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12. Responsible consumption and production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Cycle strategies aim to cycle and reuse materials at their highest value: they maximise the volume of secondary materials re-entering the economy, ultimately minimising the need for virgin material inputs and therefore also narrowing flows. Of course, virgin materials will always be needed to a degree: all materials degrade and can’t be cycled infinitely, use energy, and require blending with virgin materials to maintain strength and functionality.

Cycle

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**These 17 Goals recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.**

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, and especially on the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 at UN Headquarters in New York which let to the elaboration of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed. A major blueprint came out of this: The Sustainable Development Goals: 17 overarching goals—and 169 targets—that governments are aiming to meet by 2030. Significant progress has been made in terms of poverty, health and inequality, but there's still a way to go. This is where the circular economy comes in: by circulating resources multiple times, the circular economy tackles issues of scarcity and allows all to access what they need—without overburdening the earth. If it's implemented in a holistic way—affording attention to social considerations and the fair distribution of resources— it also offers a pathway for achieving the SDGs; and the link between the two is ever-growing. To read more about the link between the SDGs and the circular economy, click [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/blogs/how-the-circular-economy-can-help-us-reach-the-sustainable-development-goals).

It is the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) which provides substantive support and capacity-building for the SDGs and their related thematic issues. TheDSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and in advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs. In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals. DSDG aims to help facilitate this engagement.
Alongside this, the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.
In addition, the UN Secretary-General presents an annual SDG Progress report, which is developed in cooperation with the UN System, and based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected at the regional level.

To read more information: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals](https://sdgs.un.org/goals)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Our collection includes true solutions for packaging foods, drinks, care products, and many other items you use every day. While some are edible, some compostable, and some dissolve in water — they all disappear back into nature without any harmful traces.Thank you! Your submission has been received!Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

The linear plastic systemThe use of plastics has increased twentyfold in the past 50 years. While the material has many benefits, we now know there are negative consequences if it becomes waste or pollution. Documentaries such as Blue Planet II, showing the impact of plastic pollution on wildlife around the world, have shocked and spurred a public backlash against the material.In 2016, the Foundation published a report which showed that most plastic packaging is used only once, and only 14% is collected for recycling. 95% of the value of plastic packaging material, worth USD 80-120 billion annually, is lost to the economy.In our second report on plastics, published in 2017 - with our partners, we showed that without fundamental redesign and innovation, about 30% of plastic packaging will never be reused or recycled.So how can we design a circular economy for plastic, in which it never becomes waste or pollution?Beach clean-ups are needed to clean up the waste already in our environment, but they are far from enough. Even if we manage to clean up the current plastic in the environment, more plastic leaks into it every day. Every minute, one garbage truck of plastic waste enters the world’s oceans. We need to stop plastic leaking into the environment.Ban all plastic and replace it with another material, such as glass, paper or aluminium?In some cases, banning plastics can be a solution, but substitution of plastic with other materials can lead to significant negative, unintended consequences, such as increased carbon emissions, water use, and food waste. In every case, we must take a holistic approach, looking at the whole system in which a material is used, from sourcing and production to use and after use.SOLUTION: Redesign the entire plastics systemWe need a systemic approach to create a system that works in practice, without loss of economic value and no plastic waste or pollution. We need to rethink the way we make, use, and reuse plastics, essentially redesigning the system in which the material is used.A circular economy for plasticThe circular economy is an economic system in which materials are designed to be used, not used up. From the outset, products and the systems they sit within should be designed to ensure no materials are lost, no toxins are leaked, and the maximum use is achieved from every process, material, and component. If applied correctly, the circular economy benefits society, the environment, and the economy.All packaging should be designed to fit within a system, whether a reuse, recycling or compostingcompostingMicrobial breakdown of organic matter in the presence of oxygen. system.

Science & Sustainability, Apeel LifeWhat is Apeel?Fighting Food WasteEarth Already Has A Perfect Recycling System. So Why Not Use It?Fighting Food WasteHow To Make Your Avocado Perfectly Ripe When You Need It To BeFighting Food WasteHow to Feed the World Without Costing the EarthFighting Food WasteDefining the Food Waste Problem

We’re a charity committed to creating a circular economy, which is designed to eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. It’s an economic system that delivers better outcomes for people, and the environment.

Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Ooho 

Apeel

The global plastic crisis demands urgent action to redesign our approach to plastic usage. With millions of tons of plastic waste polluting landfills and oceans annually, a linear take-make-waste model is no longer sustainable. More and more businesses recognise the problem of plastic pollution and implement solutions for a circular economy, focusing on plastic elimination. Just as examples, Ooho developed edible and biodegradable packaging, Lush solid cosmetics with little to no packaging, while Apeel is producing packaging-free food.