Kyle J. Ritchie is the Education Sustainable Design Lead at Cannon Design in Chicago and an Adjunct Professor at the Boston Architectural College.

Eric Corey Freed is an award-winning architect, 12-time author, and global speaker. He is a sought-after lecturer who has educated over 250,000 people on sustainability and high-performance building.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 4

How This Book Is Organized 4

Part 1: Linear Is Out, Circular Is In: An Economic Revolution 4

Part 2: Rethinking Business for a Circular Economy 5

Part 3: Rethinking Material Lifecycles - The Circular Perspective 5

Part 4: Redesigning the Future to Be Circular 5

Part 5: Creating a Circular Economy for All 6

Part 6: The Part of Tens 6

Beyond the Book 6

Where to Go from Here 7

Part 1: Linear Is Out, Circular Is In: An Economic Revolution 9

Chapter 1: Rejecting Waste, Rethinking Materials, and Redesigning the World 11

Rejecting the Idea of Waste 12

Waste as a driver of the economy 13

Waste as a resource 13

Rethinking Material Lifecycles 16

Take, make, and waste 17

Making technical materials circular 17

Making biological materials circular 18

Upcycling versus downcycling 19

Redesigning the Future to Be Circular 19

Food production 20

Circular businesses, products, and clothing 20

A circular economy for all 22

Chapter 2: What's Wrong with Being Linear, Anyway? 23

We're Taking the Wrong Stuff 25

We're not importing this stuff from space 27

Everyone keeps having kids 28

We don't have as much as we thought 30

It all revolves around oil 31

We're Making the Wrong Stuff 31

You're buying trash 32

Even kids can build with blocks 33

Trying to recycle the unrecyclable 33

We're using materials that are bad for us 34

We're Wasting the Wrong Stuff 34

It all comes at a big cost 34

We're running out of room 35

It's expensive to throw things away 35

The debt collector is knocking at the door 35

Change Is Really Hard, We Know 36

If it ain't broke, don't fix it 36

Taking risks 37

Chapter 3: A Growing Demand for a Circular Economy 41

The Drive to Make Money 44

Redefining risk and liability 44

Innovating to attract new customers 46

The Drive to Be Healthier 46

Lifestyles that foster health and sustainability 46

Wellness as a priority 47

The Drive to Be in Compliance 47

Environmental, social, and corporate governance 48

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) 49

Climate and shareholders 50

A Larger Drive Toward Deep Sustainability 50

This has been brewing for a while 51

Precedents 51

Looking to the future 54

Chapter 4: From Linear To Circular: What You Need To Know 57

So Much Chaos: Understanding Entropy 58

Externalized costs 59

Linear versus circular: A hilarious-yet-depressing comparison 60

Borrow from nature, not from the future 64

Waste = Food: Redefining Disposal 66

All materials have another use 68

Product stewardship 69

Building Resilience Through Diversity: Redefining Strength 71

Responding to disruption 72

Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin' 73

Durability and reparability policies 74

Part 2: Rethinking Business For a Circular Economy 77

Chapter 5: Identifying Your Business Opportunities 79

Exploring the Benefits of Going Circular 79

Exploiting the profit opportunities 80

Reducing volatility and ensuring greater supply chain security 81

Managing the new demand for business services 81

Improving customer interaction and loyalty 83

Rethinking the Business Model 85

Building new types of capital 86

Rethinking money as the only medium of exchange 87

Reflecting the true cost of products 87

Embracing diversity 89

Rethinking your supply chain 89

Designing for the future 90

Examining Business from a Global Perspective 91

Chapter 6: Rethinking the Conventional Business Model 95

Rethinking How We Look at Cost 98

The hidden cost of procurement 100

The hidden impact of transportation 104

The hidden burden of inventory 104

The hidden secrets of quality 105

Maximizing Your Value Proposition to Customers 105

Becoming a mission-driven company 106

Safeguarding your workers 107

Greenwashing 107

Turning Obstacles into Opportunities 108

Listening to customers 109

Creating unspoken demand 110

Rethinking old assumptions 110

Bending linear into loops 111

Thinking of businesses as a system 112

Chapter 7: Exploring the Essentials of a Circular Business Model 113

The Six Rs: Your New Circularity Mantra 114

Refuse: Say no to what you don't need 114

Reduce: Use less for longer 115

Reuse and remanufacture: Extend product life 116

Repurpose: Find other uses 116

Recycle: Return materials for rebirth 116

Rot: Return it to the soil 117

Developing a Circular Business Structure: The Bones of the Operation 117

Identifying potential material loops 118

Considering innovative business models 118

Who's at the table? Engaging your stakeholders 120

Developing a message 121

Benchmarking and improvement 122

Chapter 8: 'Round and 'Round: Making Your Products Circular 127

Managing Material Lifecycle Performance 128

Designing products for reuse 129

Designing products to be remanufactured 130

Designing products for recycling 130

Making Your Product Lifecycle Smarter 131

Creating effective and serviceable products 132

Being flexible 132

Seeking collaborators and partners 133

How It All Comes Together 134

Everything is circular first 134

Everything is transparent 135

Chapter 9: From Trash to Treasure: Converting Waste into Products 139

Seeing Why the Circular Economy Is All About Retaining Value 140

Stop Being Linear: It's a Waste of Time 144

Why Buy Waste When You Can Sell It? 145

Selling your old stuff 147

Starting your own business 149

Troubleshooting a Wasteful Product Lifecycle 152

Where the wild things are 153

Signed, sealed, delivered 153

Waste not, want not 154

Being a sustainable shopper 154

Finding value in the ugly 155

Part 3: Rethinking Material Lifecycles: The Circular Perspective 163

Chapter 10: Understanding the Circular Material Lifecycle 165

Viewing the Entire Spectrum of Environmental Impact 166

Defining degenerative lifecycles 167

Defining sustainable lifecycles 167

Defining regenerative lifecycles 168

Understanding the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Butterfly Diagram 169

Examining the circular economy's structure: The bones of the operation 169

Renewables flow management: Harnessing biological cycles 171

Stock management: Optimizing technical cycles 172

Promoting environmental restoration: Investing now to obtain even more later 175

Chapter 11: Analyzing Material Lifecycle Processes 179

Looking at Material Processes 181

Fostering transparency 183

Instituting chemical management 183

Rewarding innovation 184

The Lifecycle Principles: Identifying Where Change Can Happen 184

Preserving natural capital 185

Enhancing the usefulness of products, components, and raw materials 186

Developing effective systems that minimize negative externalities 187

Looking at Opportunities for Optimization 187

Refusing the new: Reusing the old 188

Employing the remaining factor: Remanufacturing 189

Biochemical extraction for the win 190

Chapter 12: Improving the Material Lifecycle 195

Improving How Material Lifecycles Function 196

Looking at Materials in a New Way 198

Getting to know your lifecycle 199

Refuse before you reduce, reuse, and recycle 200

Examining Operations in a New Way 201

Looking at human capital 201

You can be everywhere 201

Connecting Sourcing, Suppliers, and Customers 202

Chapter 13: It All Comes Down to Selecting the Right Materials 207

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Exploring Materials 208

Oil or Plastics - They're Really Much the Same Thing 208

What's Harder than Rock? Metals 212

Paper Products and Cardboard 214

Through the Looking Glass 217

And Everything In-Between 218

Identifying Hazardous Materials 219

Red list materials 220

Red list material alternatives 221

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) 221

Sourcing, Ethics, and Standards 222

Understanding strategic sourcing 222

Establishing ethics 223

Exploring certifications and standards 223

Chapter 14: Circular Materials, Products, and Packaging 227

Redesigning Materials and Products: The Transition from Linear to Circular 228

"Less bad" does not equal "good" 228

Planning for material reincarnation 230

How To Keep Materials In Use Forever 231

Why things break 232

From planned obsolescence to planned permanence 232

Shipping Global versus Producing Local 234

Building a regional economy: A shipping substitute 235

You've got to be shipping me 238

Permanent packaging 239

Part 4: Redesigning the Future to Be Circular 245

Chapter 15: The Circular Economy of Food Production 247

Examining the Two Ways of Producing Food 248

Investigating the Hidden Costs of...