Business case

Contribution to social parity, or impact on social disparity

Equality

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

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)

Providing public and private education and support services at any level or for any profession, and governmental and public administration services, including judicial, regulatory, and legislative activities, taxation, defence, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and the administration of government programmes

Education and Government Services

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

Ensure renewable, reusable, non-toxic resources are utilised as materials and energy in an efficient way

Prioritise regenerative resources

Designing to reduce waste during production and use

Design out waste

 Develop research, structure knowledge, encourage innovation networks and disseminate findings with integrity


Strengthen and advance knowledge

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

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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 On February 20, 2020, SWEEP: Sea Waste Education to Eradicate Plastic hosted the Plastic Waste Solutions Summit at the Main Atrium of SM City Bacolod. The Summit was organized to celebrate the milestones of the project’s two-year implementation and recognize partners from local government units, government agencies, civil society organizations, enterprises and communities in Negros and the Philippines.SWEEP – implemented by the Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation Inc. (PRRCFI) under the USAID Municipal Waste Recycling Program – kicked off in April 2018 aiming to increase public awareness on marine plastic pollution and to work together with local government units in implementing policies to improve solid waste management of plastic waste.Throughout the project, SWEEP conducted various initiatives such as community coastal clean-ups and waste audits, a mobile museum road tour, designing and launching Wala Usik Sari-Sari Stores, and helping craft public and private policies on improved solid waste management. 

Province of Negros Occidental

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The Incubation Network sources, supports and scales innovative solutions that tackle plastic pollution. Together with their diverse network of key partners, they work to optimize land-based plastic waste management, and advance a circular economy in South and Southeast Asia.

The network is an initiative by The Circulate Initiative and SecondMuse.

The Incubation Network

Philippine Reef & Rainforest Conservation Foundation, Inc (PRRCFI)

<p>A not-for-profit non-governmental organization established in 1994 that acts as the caretaker for Danjugan Island in the Negros Occidental province, the Philippine Reef &amp; Rainforest Conservation Foundation, Inc (PRRCFI), runs several environmental programs that focus on biodiversity conservation, nature tourism, science &amp; research, environmental education, solid waste management, and zero-waste initiatives. As part of their homegrown Wala Usik (“do not waste anything”) movement, the PRRCFI will be conducting a project to address gender and human rights issues for women informal waste workers.</p><p>The project with the Incubation Network&nbsp;conducts research, consultation, and prototype innovations to support women informal waste workers to participate in (and benefit from) a circular economy. It also produces a localized version of a three-stage Design Thinking Framework: 1) Empathize and Define 2) Ideate, Prototype, and Test 3) Implement, Communicate &amp; Measure. Finally, it develops a ‘Local Government Unit Guide for Gender-Responsive Waste Management and Circular Economy.</p>