Partnerships are Crucial

for a circular economy

Quick shout out: our next 2 cohorts are open for sign up:

• Mini Marketing for Circularity Cohort

• Circular Materials (Textiles) Cohort

Feel free to directly purchase your membership in the links above, or fill out this quick form to express interest in joining or request a sliding scale fee. We are having an info session on Feb 26 @ 11am ET. Reply to this email if you’d like to join. This is open to everyone who wants to learn and share about the circular economy!

Partnerships for a Circular Economy

I want to take a moment to talk about how crucial partnerships are- always- but especially for the circular economy.

First, the linear economy is build on partnerships too, but the processes and standards are well established for how to make products, warehouse them, ship them, track them, etc. We’ve been working on those processes since - you could argue- the industrial revolution, or maybe more obviously, the 1950s when many countries began a wild race to make more, more, more, ever more quickly and cheaply. We may not be at the end of that race yet… but some folks are tired of it and see the writing on the wall (that it cannot continue forever and it does continue at our detriment).

Pre-1950’s, we were much closer to a circular economy, but we’ve taken a 75 year break from valuing, reusing, repairing and recycling everything we own, so we need some practice. For the circular economy, little has been established in terms of processes and standards on a large scale. Some areas of the fashion circular economy are becoming more standard, like choosing a resale provider and fulfillment partner, but even that is still a bit of the wild west with new service providers launching every few months (it seems). Most areas of the circular economy, at least for fashion, are far from established and standardized. Rental, repair, remanufacturing, recycling and design for circularity are all developing and going through major iterations on a yearly basis. It’s not clear who or what will be thriving next year and who or what will have failed or changed course significantly.

From my vantage point as a consultant, I see businesses growing into the circular economy, but many times their leaders are unsure how to actually do this. Who should they partner with to have their products collected and recycled? What software do they need if they want a digital product passport? How do they help their customers understand what they are trying to do? There are answers to all of these questions, but the pathways are not clear yet and they need support to find a build partnerships that serve their goals.

This uncertainty and lack of standards is also true for individual people trying to participate in the circular economy. What should we each do with the things we own that we are either done with or are broken or no longer usable? Should we resell our own stuff? Donate it? Consign it? What’s the best way to get a quality repair? I get a lot of emails and texts from friends asking me what to do with things from their homes, and even though I know a lot about this space, I still don’t love my answers because they aren’t that satisfying. The vast majority of our culture has not adapted to the circular economy, myself included. (I do love the growing number of refill and package-free shops I see popping up in little towns I visit, but I digress.)

All of this is to underline the need for visionary partnerships to help create a circular economy. We are all trying to figure out what happens to STUFF after we buy it: what do we do with it when we are done with it or it’s broken? If it shouldn’t go in the trash, in principle, where should it go? I could argue that this is a very broad question that helps us understand many of the service providers and businesses trying to grow and create a circular economy, including those featured this season on our podcast:

Episode 1: Designing goods for the circular economy. How does a multi-brand retailer rethink their design processes to be more circular-friendly with help from a local university and consultants? (Country Road Retailer, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, A.BCH World Consulting)

Episode 2: Storytelling and creating community for the circular economy. How do two individual business-owners partner to share what’s possible in a circular economy and create a bustling community along the way? (Laura x Cynthia)

Episode 3: Academia as incubator for circular enablement tech. How do universities nurture new business ventures? (University of Michigan x Fibarcode)

Episode 4: Practicing reuse on a hyper local scale. How do hyper-local small businesses create successful partnerships with their larger communities? (Circular Thrift)

Episode 5: Creating municipal textile collection and recycling. How are unwanted textiles collected from homes, sorted for reuse and recycled at scale? (WM x Goodwill of the Finger Lakes x Reju)

Episode 6: Building repair infrastructure. How does a repair software platform ensure quality repairs by partnering with a repair collective? (MendIt x Repair Guild)

Episode 7: Reusing buildings for their parts. How do we take buildings down and reuse their parts in new construction? (Reuse Consulting x Henson Architecture x Co Adaptive Design)

I encourage you to find a topic above that sounds interesting to you, have a listen and begin to imagine what partnerships could do for your corner of the circular economy (although there are no corners in a circle…). Listen on SPOTIFY , APPLE.

What do you think?

Let me know if you’re interested in the upcoming cohorts!

Cynthia