The Circular Economy: From a Linear to a Circular Economy
This case study describes how to move from a profit-driven organization to a multiple-added-value organization using an applied scientific approach. It sketches the developments from moving from a linear economy to the circular economy, shows new developments, structures, and strategies, and discusses how to translate them into real-world practices.
What are the values and new perspectives that companies need to embrace in a circular economy? How do society- and value-based business models support circular economies?
1.3 Towards Speeding Up and Multiplicity of Transitions
Business, and thus the way we earn our money, is going through a major development.
Whereas the current economy is based on economic values such as growth, efficiency, effectiveness, and wealth, a sustainable economy is based on different values such as quality, quality of life, diversification, and well-being.
We are at a turning point: 'our hierarchical, top-down society is changing into a sustainable, bottom-up networking society'. This is a result, among others, of the new popularity of sustainability (already there in 1972 because of the Club of Rome) and influenced by the recent global financial crisis. How companies should react to this has not been sufficiently researched. The focus will be on organizing activities in a sustainable way to which everyone will be challenged to make a contribution.
Holland is in transition. The 'buzz word' transition has many meanings. The website transitionnetwork.org lists about 100 transitions that are required to attain a sustainable society. The move towards a service-based economy from an industrial-based economy in the last century was also a transition.
So nothing new is happening. But the number of transitions and the speed with which they occur are new to us. Rotmans (2010) identifies transitions in healthcare, the building sector, energy supply, the mobility system, and the sustainable economy. We will briefly look at the transition in the economy, this being a prerequisite for the other two sectors: the building sector and healthcare. These sectors are closely linked.