Circular Economy

Our vision for the circular economy goes beyond recycling: it requires an organisation to radically rethink its relationships with suppliers and end-users too, accessing new skills and developing new incentives, so that value is retained and regenerated as waste is avoided as much as possible and materials are re-circulated within the system.

For example, consumer furore around plastics has sparked a frenzy of activity in this space: improvements to recycling, inventing compostable alternatives, creating models for monetising and reusing plastic items like cups and bottles, spurring activism, such as the ‘plastic attacks’ rejecting packaging in-store, and cleaning up existing pollution, as well as a spate of business and government pledges. Yet, our failure thus far to translate the attention into meaningful, widespread change shows the importance of taking a step back, looking at the root of the problem, and asking how we can restructure the whole system.

What are our goals?

To help you understand the full set of risks and opportunities that a transition to the circular economy will pose to your business
To help you develop targets and strategies that not enable your business to capitalise on these circular opportunities, while concurrently mitigating the associated risks
To help you to imagine and then prototype new products, new businesses models, and broader innovations that allow you to transition to a more circular business
Build ‘unusual’ yet powerful coalitions to conceive, develop, implement and scale-up the transformative solutions and interventions we need to reconfigure systems towards circularity

If you would like any further information on our work on the circular economy please don’t hesitate to contact Principal Project Manager, Martin Hunt. His recent article on the built environment can be read here.

We're tracking this challenge live on the Futures Centre, head over to see what #signalsofchange we're spotting.

#OneLess

The #OneLess campaign has been leading the charge against ocean plastic pollution since 2016, focusing on the pervasive single-use plastic water bottle. Because everything we do touches the ocean. Read more

Auto Loop: How to close the automotive loop

We undertook an investigation to understand how the automotive industry is exploring closed loop models, where are the opportunities, barriers and recommendations for a more sustainable automotive industry. Read more

Circular Leap Asia

A new Forum report shines a light on the huge untapped potential of fashion manufacturers to contribute to the fashion sector’s circular transformation and highlights the opportunity to recalibrate industry power dynamics as the industry emerges from the COVID-19 crisis. Read more

Eliminating single-use plastics with Asian food delivery companies

Promising convenience, affordability and choice for busy consumers, food delivery services have burgeoned in recent years, particularly in Asia. In 2015, the Asia Pacific region accounted for nearly half the total value of global home food delivery, and it’s expected to be the industry’s fastest growing region in the next 2 years. Read more

Re-usable Buildings Pathfinder

“The future of the building marketplace is one where traditional construction is a thing of the past, where reconstruction and redeployment are commonplace. A world where buildings can be flexibly changed, adapted, expanded and reduced according to demand or use. Read more

Latest

Nature and climate: our single existential crisis

As the opening ceremonies of the Convention on Biological Diversity kick off in Kunming, China, Jane Lawton, Forum’s Chief Development and Communications Officer, and Dhaval Negandhi, Associate Director for Climate, call out the critical need to connect the international debates and action on nature and climate, and advocate for three critical shifts that will ensure we can solve for the key challenges of our time.
Global Financial Controller

Are you an inspirational, collaborative, values-led individual who can deliver effective, enabling operational leadership across Forum?
Mabel C. L. Mungomba

Mabel is CEO of Belcomm Limited, a Marketing and Brand building agency, and UPSTART Skills Bank which focuses on training and consultancy in Organization Development, Strategic Planning, Enterprise development, Leadership, Change Management and assisting progressive organizations design strategic plans and tailor made development programs for their staff.
Constança Belchior

Constança is a facilitator and designer of collaboration and innovation processes for sustainability and regenerative development. She belongs to a collective dedicated to transformative change - in teams, organisations and fields of action - grounded on an integral and living systems approach.

The Five Capitals - a framework for sustainability

The Five Capitals Model provides a basis for understanding sustainability in terms of the economic concept of wealth creation or ‘capital’. Any organisation will use five types of capital to deliver its products or services. A sustainable organisation will maintain and where possible enhance these stocks of capital assets, rather than deplete or degrade them.
Reinventing the way the world works.

Forum for the Future is a leading international sustainability non-profit. We specialise in addressing critical global challenges by catalysing change in key systems, from food to apparel, energy to shipping. We do this by convening transformational collaborations to drive change, by partnering with organisations to help them lead by example, and by building a global community of pioneers and change makers.
Jobs

We are a growing organisation and we are regularly on the look out for new recruits to join our teams around the world.
Sustainability and system change

Climate change, malnutrition, inequality, poverty, ecological degradation. The global challenges we face are so urgent and tricky that we need a solution to match their scale and complexity. This is where system change comes in. We use systems thinking to understand the web of interrelations that create complex problems, anticipate unintended consequences, and identify how and where to take action to meet the SDG goals.
Become a system change agent

Learn more about upcoming system change programmes and express your interest.
What is Net Positive?

We reinvent strategies for a 1.5°C world. Our Net Positive approach helps business put back more into society and environment than it takes out. Unilever’s pioneering commitment to eliminate fossil fuels from its operations and directly support the generation of more renewable energy than they consume was driven behind the scenes by Forum.
Trailblazing sustainability strategies

Leadership in the 2020s is about your organisation’s ability to positively influence its operating context. We help you to understand the opportunities, and then how to unlock them.
Cotton 2040

Cotton 2040 aims to create a resilient cotton industry in an increasingly climate-disrupted world by bringing together stakeholders across the value chain.
Protein Challenge 2040

The Protein Challenge 2040 is the first global coalition of its kind, aiming to tackle the question: How do we provide up to 10 billion people with enough protein in a way that is healthy, affordable and good for the planet?
What is a sustainable business model?

What is a sustainable business model? The term signals the need to go beyond innovating products or services, and change the fundamentals of how a business makes money.