Transitioning to a Circular Business Ecosystem (LINCIT)

Circular economy is at the heart of the sustainability transition, as outlined in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and The Paris Agreement. Our current economic system, however, is far from circular. This is not necessarily due to a lack of ambition – many businesses today, small and large, have integrated clear sustainability goals into their strategic vision. Yet they find themselves struggling with the “how to” question. How to redesign entire supply chains to close the loop? And how to reorganize the associated logistics and operations? One crucial condition is clear: Companies cannot achieve circularity on their own. Circularity, after all, is not a property of a single product, service, or business model – it is a property of an entire system. This project thus studies circularity from an ecosystem perspective.

The LINCIT project addresses these challenges from four perspectives:

1. Starting small: How to manage the circular model in parallel to the existing linear model?
2. Redrawing partnerships: How to select the right external partners and how to build a minimum viable ecosystem for circularity?
3. Scaling the ecosystem: Once a successful minimum viable ecosystem is in place, how to scale? What is the constraining and enabling role of institutions when focusing on strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making?
4. Measuring: Measuring the success of transitioning to circularity is essential, but which circular performance indicators can be identified along the circular journey?