By Angélique

Faced with the depletion of natural resources, tensions in supply chains, and growing consumer expectations, companies can no longer settle for linear models ("extract, produce, discard"). The circular economy offers an alternative: preserving resources, reducing negative impacts, and creating new economic opportunities.

But questions quickly arise on the business side: What are the steps of a circular economy initiative? Where to start to structure your actions and bring your teams on board? Which tools to choose so as not to get lost in the concepts?

These are all legitimate questions for CSR, innovation, or strategy managers who want to move from intention to action.

In this article, we'll answer these questions step by step, offering you clear reference points, practical tools, and courses of action to get started on solid footing.

What you should remember:

  • The circular economy offers a credible alternative to the linear model by reducing dependence on resources and creating new economic opportunities.
  • Starting a circular approach begins with a clear diagnosis: analyzing your resource flows, measuring your impacts, and mobilizing your stakeholders.
  • It's better to choose a few priority levers (eco-design, reuse, new partnerships) rather than spreading yourself too thin.
  • Circulab's strategic and innovation tools let you structure your circular economy approach.
  • Training like that offered by Circulab Academy helps accelerate your skill-building and move from intention to action in a clear, structured way.

Why launch a circular economy initiative today?

Increasingly strong environmental and economic pressures

According to the OECD, global use of primary materials is expected to double by 2060, going from about 79 gigatonnes in 2011 to 167 Gt in 2060. This figure reflects a drastic rise in extraction and associated impacts (greenhouse gas emissions, soil and water pollution, biodiversity loss).

Despite technological progress and a slight slowdown thanks to a more service-oriented economy, this increase remains massive. For various industries, this means growing dependence on ever more limited, costly resources. Added to this are rising geopolitical tensions around strategic raw materials.

The conclusion is clear: it's urgent to adopt different economic models, capable of breaking free from the "extract-produce-discard" logic.

Growing societal demand for the ecological transition

The demand for sustainability no longer comes only from regulators. It's now at the heart of citizens' and customers' expectations. Deloitte's 2024 Sustainable Consumer Report highlights that, despite a certain "sustainability fatigue" linked to the cost of living, a majority of consumers remain attentive to the environmental and social impacts of their purchases.

Younger generations in particular rank the consistency between companies' words and their environmental actions among their criteria for trust and loyalty. This pressure is also felt in the job market, with young graduates increasingly seeking organizations whose values and practices address the ecological and social emergency. For companies, ignoring this dynamic means risking the loss not only of customers, but also of key employees.

Concrete opportunities for every industry

The circular economy isn't just a regulatory constraint or an extra effort to reduce your environmental footprint. It's also a lever for innovation and competitiveness. By adopting approaches like eco-design, reuse, or resource pooling, companies can cut costs, secure their supply chains, and create new value-added offerings.

On a global scale, UN Environment estimates that the transition to a circular economy could generate up to $4.5 trillion in economic opportunities by 2030. But beyond the figures, what's emerging are above all tangible benefits for companies: improved brand image, customer loyalty, anticipation of regulations, and reduced supply risks.

In other words, starting a circular initiative isn't just a response to external pressures. It's also a strategic investment to strengthen your resilience and stay relevant in rapidly changing markets.

Identifying the first steps of the circular approach

Laying the foundations: diagnosis, mapping, and stakeholder mapping

Starting a circular economy initiative begins with a circularity diagnosis. This means analyzing in depth how your company uses its resources, designs its products, and generates value, in order to identify its points of dependence and its room for improvement. This foundational step has three objectives:

  • Assess resource dependence
    Raw materials, energy, water, critical inputs, etc.
  • Identify losses and waste
    Throughout the value chain.
  • Spot concrete opportunities
    To reduce costs, limit risks, and innovate.

This diagnosis breaks down into two essential dimensions:

  • Mapping your resource flows and impacts: tracking incoming and outgoing flows (materials, products, waste, energy) makes areas of fragility or value loss visible. Methods like life cycle assessment (LCA) or material flow analysis help structure this assessment.
  • Engaging internal and external stakeholders: a circular approach can't be designed in a silo. Involving teams, suppliers, customers, and territorial actors lets you jointly identify constraints, dependencies, and cooperation levers.

In practice, a circularity diagnosis isn't just a report. It's a strategic decision-making tool that highlights areas of vulnerability but, above all, levers for action, and prepares the roadmap toward a more circular, resilient business model.

Choosing your priority levers for action

Once the diagnosis is done, it's essential not to spread yourself too thin. The circular economy offers a multitude of levers. It's better to select a few, tailored to your company's and industry's reality.

Rethinking products, services, and business models

Today, it's essential to explore new models that create value differently. This could mean offering a service rather than a product (functional economy), developing usage-based offerings, or designing collaborative, territorial models.

In the construction sector, for example, selective deconstruction allows materials (wood, concrete, windows) to be reused on new building sites.

Integrating eco-design and reuse strategies

Did you know? 80% of a product's impacts are determined at the design stage. Starting from this principle, it's necessary to think about repairability, modularity, or the use of recycled materials right from the design of your offering, in order to extend its lifespan.

Innovating through new partnerships and ecosystems

To create synergies, you can team up with other actors in your value chain. This can take the form of pooling your logistics flows, or turning your waste into a resource for another sector.

Tools and resources to structure your environmental approach

Moving from a linear economy to a circular economy requires both a big-picture vision and concrete reference points for action.

In this section, we provide several resources to help you avoid staying at the intention stage and to ground your approach in reality.

Tools to use from the design stage of your offering

The tools created by Circulab are very useful because they offer a qualitative, systemic approach to transformation. They complement more quantitative approaches (such as LCA or material flow analysis) by bringing an understanding of the context, relationships, and strategic choices. Combining the two is essential: measure to steer, analyze to decide.

  • The Circular Canvas invites you to rethink a business model as a whole, or to design a new product, by connecting resources, the economic actors involved, and the associated impacts. It helps you visualize where you can create value differently while limiting your environmental and social impact.
  • The Partner Map lets you clarify your ecosystem: who are the key actors, what roles do they play, and how can you collaborate to build circular solutions?
  • The Value Chain Canvas gives you a clear reading of your value chain's flows and highlights dependencies, losses, and blocking points.

Circularity indicators

Setting up indicators is essential to turn intuition into a measurable strategy. Tracking carbon footprint, reuse rate, share of recycled materials, or water consumption lets you make results objective, compare them over time, and take corrective action if needed.

Training in the circular economy

Getting trained remains a key lever to avoid working alone and reinventing the wheel. The most requested topics concern eco-design, understanding the regulatory framework (the AGEC law, the European Green Deal, digital product passports), measuring circularity, and designing circular business models.

Circulab Academy has supported thousands of professionals and organizations through this transition since 2015. Our approach relies on the ability to think in systems using practical tools (Circular Canvas, Partner Map, Value Chain Canvas), making it easier to move from theory to action. Our programs combine real-world case studies, hands-on practice, and shared experiences, helping companies structure their approach and identify levers tailored to their reality.

In short

Starting a circular economy initiative isn't a theoretical exercise, but a gradual journey that begins with a simple question: where do we stand today, and what can we transform?

By carrying out a clear diagnosis, identifying your resource flows, and involving your stakeholders, your company lays solid foundations. By then choosing a few priority levers for action (rethinking your models, extending the useful life through eco-design, developing new partnerships), you can set a virtuous dynamic in motion, tailored to your realities and economic activities.

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