Business case

Utilise bio-based, reusable, non-toxic and non-critical materials

Regenerative materials

Replace freshwater with less impactful alternatives and enact water efficiency measures

Regenerative water

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Recover waste energy or generate fuels and energy from waste streams

Energy recovery from waste

Regenerate strategies phase out hazardous or toxic materials and processes and substitute them with regenerative biomass resources. A circular economy aims to mimic natural cycles—by shifting to more regenerative farming practices, for example—while also maximising the share of circular biomass that enters the economy. Regeneration can happen both at the systems level (by designing regenerative processes) as well as at the product level (by switching synthetic to organic fertilisers, for example).

Regenerate

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

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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By Guido Rutten
March 12, 2018




 



 This article first appeared on Ensia."I’m using everything now," said Samuel Gachau Kimani, showing off the biogas digester on his farm in Kirura, Kenya, north of Nairobi. Kimani bought the system about a year ago from Sistema Biobolsa, a start-up committed to creating value from waste.The cow dung he puts into the digester produces gas for home cooking, and the remaining slurry, becomes fertilizer for his coffee plants, which produce prize-winning beans that are processed by a local cooperative, bought by coffee roasters and sipped by latte lovers in coffee bars on the other side of the world. The biogas system is an asset to Kimani and his family: The investment already has been paid back, and it has made cooking a lot easier and safer. It’s also a great example of the circular economy.
Repairing is part of the DNA of developing countries.

Breaking the circle
Small-scale solar power for pumping irrigation water is spreading rapidly thanks to pay-as-you-go systems set up by social entrepreneurs.

Maintaining the circle
Even as they work to incorporate circular principles into their practice, farmers can keep a constant eye on opportunities to do even more.

  







 


  



 


Kenya

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Nairobi

<p>A case study of a small scale farm north of Nairobi using circular strategies to revolutionise their business.</p>