After a successful launch in March 2018, Circle Lab introduces a new product feature today: the world’s biggest circular economy database, openly accessible and searchable for everyone. This is the result of a joint effort with many partners, geared towards making the best knowledge on the circular economy available to the public globally. The goal? To encourage anyone who wants to support the transition towards a circular economy to contribute their know-how to an ever-growing knowledge base. This is happening within a thriving community of users who are aggregating, connecting and sharing their expertise on the circular economy in order to make it available to everyone. In short, a “wikipedia for circularity”.
The future of impact is digital, and the circular economy is 1,000 steps ahead
Thousands of cities and businesses worldwide are striving to adopt the circular economy. However, they often face the same problem: limited access to expertise, structured information, and knowledge about the circular economy, as well as how to measure and implement circular strategies.
“Information on the circular economy is currently spread across many organisations and industries or gated behind members-only communities. This defeats the very basis of a circular approach and makes it very hard to disseminate, and even harder to implement such strategies. By bringing all circular economy insights, best practices, and research for the first time into one place in Circle Lab for everyone to openly explore and learn from, we want to break down these information silos and accelerate knowledge transfers across sectors and borders.”
Shyaam Ramkumar, Knowledge & Innovation Manager at Circle Economy
Fast growth towards the biggest library that helps to accelerate solutions
Today, Circle Lab is introducing over 1,000 case studies and examples of the circular economy. This number is set to grow quickly: the platform will soon also host another 500 case studies specific to the textiles sector, as well as all 3,000 initiatives identified throughout the Circular Economy Mapping Week, hosted by Circular Economy Club and supported by Circle Economy.
“The Circle Lab community is growing rapidly with soon 3.000 case studies available. Add we expect more to come. It is a solution and action oriented community that is dedicated to solve linear issues with circular solutions as the circular economy will be the new normal. In the future everyone will be able to upload case studies and initiatives. In order to make the best information available, we will also put in place a review and quality assurance process with topic experts. It is all about a good balance between quality and quantity”
Harald Friedl, CEO at Circle Economy
Insights from 6 months of testing: most popular case studies previewed are in tech, textile and construction sectors
Circle Economy first opened access to a beta version of the platform in August 2017. The testing yielded interesting insights and has already brought together over 4,500 users who have used and contributed to the online space. The early initiative also spurred collaborations with many other like-minded organisations willing to collaborate and scale positive impact. Among these partners are: fetch, Renewable Matter, the Circular Economy Club, Amsterdam Smart City, and Circul’R:
“Partnerships are key to our mission to scale circular impact. It is all about community and problem solving. We invite all change-makers that share our vision for an open and inclusive circular economy to join us on this journey.”
Katie Hans, Project Manager Circle Lab
Comments from some of our partners:
“The circular economy is a key lever in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and we strongly believe in opening up communication channels and access to knowledge in order to accelerate change. We’re excited to be sharing the innovations we’ve curated on our own platform, fetch, on the Knowledge Hub and hope this will inspire other organisations to join us in building an open and sustainable economy.”
Alison Azaria, Founder at fetch
“We are proud to be supporting the development of a digital infrastructure for the broader circular economy community to benefit from and engage with. Online tools are a unique opportunity to foster collaboration and scale impact on a global level, and we’re excited to see openness and transparency drive Circle Lab’s growth.”
Margriet Schreuders, Head of Charities, Nationale Postcode Loterij
Circle Lab adds to a more transparent and fact-based approach to the circular economy transition. After a test phase that kept the team busy over the last 6 months, the product was further refined, and insights from usage data that emerged clearly show:
- Most read were case studies on the potential impact of emerging exponential technologies on the circular economy, such as blockchain;
- Second on the list was the textiles industry, with case studies from larger brands like Adidas as well as circular innovators like Repack topping the most read list
- Very much sought after were also examples from the built environment sector, which accurately reflects the importance of the sector as a potential driver for circular impact (as shown in the Circularity Gap Report)
“Through user insights we aimed to improve the usability and refine the framework that we use to explain and make sense of the circular economy. It has made the product much more accessible and we will therefore hopefully see more impact in practice.”
Shyaam Ramkumar, Knowledge & Innovation Manager at Circle Economy
The next step for Circle Lab – Stay tuned!
Circle Lab will continue to expand and introduce new services. Next month, Circle Assessment, a digital tool for businesses to assess their current state and explore circular strategies, will also be available on Circle Lab. Circle Assessment was developed and tested by Circle Economy over the last 2 years and has already helped over 100 organisations worldwide get started on and accelerate their circular journeys.
“The approach of Circle Lab is inspired by inclusiveness, transparency and openness. We hope to be able to offer more tools to the Circle Lab community – developed by any partner or contributor who wants to make them available on the platform in order to make the circular economy a reality in the near future”
Katie Hans, Project Manager Circle Lab