a circular economy is as old as mankind, but it was partly a barter economy circular by necessity (poverty, scarcity).

the new circular economy is based on personal motivation of owner-users of objects, and needs to shift from artisanal to industrial actors.

among the pioneers are SMEs involved in remanufature and corporates like Catepillar, as well as

Xerox, Fuji and Kodak (single use cameras), railway companies, airlines and armed forces, exploiting fleets of goods to sell performance, goods as a service.

search the website product-life.org for history of circular economy, etc.

300 examples are presented in my 2010 book The Performance Economy (send me an email and I shall send you the e-book), a detailed history and future outlook is presented in my forthcoming books The Circular Economy for Beginners (in 6 languages, see the blog of www.product-life.org, Italian translation end of March 2019) and the Circular Economy, a user's guide (Routledge, early Summer 2019).

hope this helps

Walter Stahel

[email protected]

Dear Oliver,

Identifying the pioneer companies who firstly adopted practices based on Circular Economy is of course a challenging task.

I may suggest to first have a look on existing literature reviews about Circular Economy that explored the origins of the concept (here are some examples):

Article How do scholars approach the circular economy? A systematic ...

Article A review on circular economy: The expected transition to a b...

Article The Circular Economy: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of th...

Article Towards a consensus on the circular economy

Article Business Model Innovation for Resource-efficiency, Circulari...

Article Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions

Article Challenges in supply chain redesign for the Circular Economy...

Secondly, I think that taking a look also on secondary sources (such as the website of NGO involved in Circular Economy, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation - https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/case-studies) could help.

All the best,

Gianmarco

Thank you Gianmarco,

This is a very helpful and comprehensive list of resources and a great suggestion for the process to get to an answer to my question.

However, off the top of your head, what is the first/earliest company/case you could think of? For instance, I thought about the Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park case often presented through an industrial ecology lens, but you or other colleagues probably have examples that precede this one?

Best,

Oliver

Well, off the top of my head, the question remains challenging and still difficult to answer.

I think that it depends mainly on what Circular Economy definition you decide to use in your study, i.e. what practices can (or cannot) be considered under the Circular Economy umbrella (unfortunately in literature a consensus on such issue has not been reached so far).

For instance, the Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park is a well-known case example from the Industrial Symbiosis research stream. But, according to my definition of Circular Economy, also other research streams (e.g. remanufacturing) falls into Circular Economy, and remanufacturing is a practice that has been widespread for a long time - for instance, Canon remanufactures its products since 1992

(https://www.ceguide.org/Strategies-and-examples/Make/Remanufacturing)

Other pioneers that, generally speaking, come to mind are Philips (from the PSS - servitization research stream) or foundries in the metal industry, which recover high percentage of metals since ever.

Hope this could help

Regards,

Gianmarco

Thank you so much for taking the time to help! I will look deeper into the cases you mention.

a circular economy is as old as mankind, but it was partly a barter economy circular by necessity (poverty, scarcity).

the new circular economy is based on personal motivation of owner-users of objects, and needs to shift from artisanal to industrial actors.

among the pioneers are SMEs involved in remanufature and corporates like Catepillar, as well as

Xerox, Fuji and Kodak (single use cameras), railway companies, airlines and armed forces, exploiting fleets of goods to sell performance, goods as a service.

search the website product-life.org for history of circular economy, etc.

300 examples are presented in my 2010 book The Performance Economy (send me an email and I shall send you the e-book), a detailed history and future outlook is presented in my forthcoming books The Circular Economy for Beginners (in 6 languages, see the blog of www.product-life.org, Italian translation end of March 2019) and the Circular Economy, a user's guide (Routledge, early Summer 2019).

hope this helps

Walter Stahel

[email protected]

I would be careful when mentioning some companies.

As mentioned in other answers, the circular economy is not a new concept, and can be considered as an umbrella concept which includes several school of thoughts and several business strategies (Product-As-A-Service (PSS), Sharing Economy, Performance Economy, Industrial Ecology, etc.). And therefore, we often cite some companies pioneer in these respective fields as example of circular economy, which is sometimes misleading.

For example, some of the companies mentioned like Xerox and Rolls Royce have been pioneer in the Product-As-A-Service business models, but does it mean that their business model is circular by design ?? What happened at the end of life of a Xerox printer? Quid of the rebound effect ? The rationale for both of these companies was purely to keep a competitive advantage on the market. Their business model provides an incentive to design a product which lasts long and which can be easily repaired. Which is contributing to a circular economy. But do they intend to close the material loops?

In contrast, two pioneers in the circular economy are Desso and Philipps, which have developped circular business models.

stop kidding me !

Interface has been doing since the 1990, what Desso has invented this century!

see the Interface case studies in the Performance Economy.

Xerox - I would recommend a Xerox reman plant, e.g. near Paris. Jack Azar in the early 1990s produced a set of powerpoint slides giving all the details of the process.

and forget Product as a service - tell me one product after the hammer which does NOT depend on (repair, spare parts etc) services to be used?

RR is selling performance, with a guarantee for results at a fixed price per hour of functioning (and more - but that is hardly known).

all these companies close the material loop TO INCREASE THEIR PROFITS, saving the environment comes as a collateral, but is not the driver.

allow me to stop the discussion here and go back to work.

maybe you should VISIT the plants of these companies? research by walking is the approach, not reading reports.

see Article Circular economy and Cradle to Cradle in educational practice

Chapter Teaching Circular Economy: Overcoming the Challenge of Green-washing

see also

The several examples/companies that have already been mentioned here are very relevant, and could be somehow considered as pioneers but I do believe It is possible to find further examples older than these ones. The thing is that at this time (in the 1800’s or in the 1900’s), they were not labelled as circular economy practices, for example, the Swiss beverage company Schweppes which started recycling its bottles in the UK in the 1800’s (source: https://www.scorelca.org/seminaire2017/pdf/SCORELCA_10-Economie-Circulaire-Quantis.pdf).

In 1972-1973, Caterpillar Inc. started remanufacturing diesel engines at the request of a large client. Even if it was not labelled as a circular economy practices yet, or if their business models and reverse supply chain was not as much established as it is today e.g., with a well-structured network of local dealers taking-back used or end-of-life equipment (sources: https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/case-studies/design-and-business-model-considerations-for-heavy-machinery-remanufacturing & http://www.product-life.org/en/archive/case-studies/caterpillar-remanufactured-products-group).

Another company pioneer in the implementation of circular economy practices could be Michelin which is retreading tires since quite a long time I think.