I recently talked with a successful circular business leader about the potential and challenges of circular business models — especially for companies just starting their circularity journey.
At some point I asked him:
“Who does circularity actually make sense for?”
His answer was simple:
“The better question is: who does it NOT make sense for?”
That reframed the whole thing for me.
Because the questions companies usually ask about circularity are:
- Is it relevant for our industry?
- Is our product suitable?
- Are we too small?
- Do we have the right capabilities?
- Is there a business case?
All reasonable.
But they all start from doubt — from “prove to me this is for us.”
What if we started somewhere else?
Instead of asking whether circularity applies to our business, we could ask:
“How do we keep benefiting from our product — even after we’ve sold it?”
That’s a very different starting point.
One assumes you need convincing.
The other assumes there may be value you’re currently leaving on the table.
So maybe the question isn’t:
“Is circularity for us?”
It’s:
“What do the companies already making it work see that we don’t yet?”