4.3.1. The Circular Economy

The concept of the Circular Economy (CE) meant that businesses could justify taking a more strategic approach to materials rather than offering an immediate reaction to 'hot' (R4) media topics. This could enable longer-term thinking and provide opportunities for innovation and different approaches. For example, in terms of the call for dealing with plastic offcuts, the principles of CE meant acknowledging that '90% of our plastic waste is product sent out into the economy and asking what we can do to take responsibility for that' (R4). Solutions that respondents said they were working with included changing the business to provide more service and less product, changing the product, and developing e-commerce and software applications for the supply chain to track the product beyond the factory gate. The CE challenge was thought to be about questioning the sustainability of the goods and services being provided, which, in turn, meant having different conversations. Rather than meetings with the health, safety, and environment manager to demonstrate compliance or measure recycling, more likely were conversations with marketing, design, and business development teams to eliminate waste rather than just reduce, and to use sustainability as an opportunity to get ahead of competitors.
