From Ideas to Impact: Startup-Corporate Collaboration in the Circular Economy
Key takeaways and top tips from the ‘Accelerating Sustainable Solutions’ panel
The global economy remains overwhelmingly linear, with only 7.2% circularity, indicating that most materials are wasted, lost, or, unavailable for reuse for years. This inefficiency exposes organizations to linear risks: price volatility, failures in the value chain, and incoming regulation, to name a few. In this context, entrepreneurs are no strangers to challenging established practices and we need to challenge these practices to create a resilient circular system that focuses on long-term stability and growth.
Startup-corporate collaboration drives transformation by leveraging innovation from startups with the resources and market reach of established companies. As part of the World Circular Economy Forum 2024 Side Events, in partnership with Forest Valley Institute, the Accelerating Sustainable Solutions panel brought together founders, sustainability professionals and the startup community to explore the power of collaboration and the difficulties that remain.
It was an insightful discussion with founders Alberto Cisco, Co-Founder and Head of Growth at Movopack and Clarabeth Concaret, Co-Founder of Fabricure and with sustainability professionals Philippe Schuler, Sustainability Consultant at Quest Studio, and Paolo Meola, Co-founder & Director of Forest Valley Institute, on using technology and innovation to tackle circular economy challenges and reshape our planet’s future.
Accelerating sustainability transformation
Over time, society has perfected the linear economy where we’ve relied on fossil fuels to optimise the linear model and create global supply chains, overlooking environmental impacts. This approach has led to a polluting system where products are made, used, and discarded. Shifting towards a circular model will require significant time, effort, and investment, along with a fundamental shift in business operations, and it needs to start now.
Change must happen beyond small segments of an organization; we need comprehensive adoption across all operations and even further along the supply chain. Achieving this will require strong upfront commitment and buy-in from top management, which can often be challenging to secure. Business priorities and focus areas are important too. For example, there’s a growing trend around recycling. While recycling can be impactful, it is only one aspect of a broader range of sustainable practices that can be integrated early in the process by adopting a circular mindset. The real challenge lies in raising internal awareness about alternatives and encouraging a change in thinking towards more proactive environmental strategies.
With growing interest from organizations in adopting these initiatives, there remains a lack of information and ecosystem connections to establish effective partnerships and implement novel solutions. Even once a solution is found, a major barrier remains — the complexity of working with a startup and integrating these practices into existing operations. This requires a clear, step-by-step approach that many companies struggle to conceptualize and execute. The ultimate aim should be to connect the dots and invest in tools and knowledge to de-risk, ensuring companies can capitalize on these opportunities effectively.
How to design and evaluate Proof-of-Concept projects
The foundation for successful Proof-of-Concept projects (PoCs) between corporates and startups is aligning expectations and establishing clear, relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs should cover economic and environmental factors and demonstrate progress towards organizational goals.
📦 Movopack offers a more expensive solution than the standard options on the market (e.g. cardboard) and, while the e-commerce brands invest in their sustainable option, the customer pays for some or, in specific cases, all of the packaging. KPIs include the return rate of packaging, customer feedback, and the overall customer experience.
During the PoC, both sides should collaboratively analyze KPIs to ensure they meet the expectations, adapting the approach to scale the solution effectively. It’s a lot about record keeping and data collection, transforming storytelling into actionable insights.
👚 When Fabricure meets with brands, their ‘North Star’ is being able to measure: how much textile waste can be recycled, what is the equivalent of that in water and carbon savings, how many hours of employment can be provided through this project. For the brand, the metrics are typically around tons of fabric waste recycled, and being able to engage in work for causes and in geographic areas that are important to them.
As of 2022, only 60% of organizations stated that they have sustainability strategies but this is increasing with almost 50,000 subject to mandatory sustainability reporting in 2024. Many companies already have frameworks and processes in place like carbon accounting. Startups must match this level of rigour and expectations to ensure transparency and provide detailed insights into operations. The ability to track specific metrics — for example, the lifecycle of a product from production to landfill — means startups can offer tailored solutions, ensuring their initiatives align closely with organizational goals.
The impact of policy on innovation and growth
We set out to explore how policy influences and drives the formation of startup-corporate partnerships. In the context of Europe, the EU Green Deal is one example of an initiative to transform the EU into a climate-neutral and sustainable economy by 2050. While certain policies — for example, EPR schemes or the EU PPWR— act as drivers for companies to implement circular solutions, companies are also facing increasing pressure from investors and consumers.
Following the new laws coming into place on an EU or a national level (France’s fast fashion bill), we can anticipate seeing voluntary actions to emerge as companies start to understand their responsibility and create new sustainability strategies. To illustrate this, we reflected on the establishment of mandatory carbon markets that propelled the creation of voluntary markets.
From a geographic standpoint, balancing regulatory rigour with innovation remains a complex issue for the EU as it tends to follow suit and regulate, rather than build. From an industry perspective, efforts to change are coming from those that are further along in the climate transition. These companies recognise the need to be cost and energy-effective, viewing these efforts not just as compliance but as a financial benefit.
With each country facing unique challenges and opportunities in moving to a circular economy model, there are no universal solutions. By working together and involving all stakeholders, we can achieve greater circularity, reducing waste and promoting sustainability as core elements of business practices. At the heart of it — collaboration thrives on adaptability and innovation, and we need more of this mindset across industry, government, education and further afield.
Expert insights from the panel
🚀 For startups
- Stay flexible. The sustainability landscape is changing every day. Be ready to adapt your value proposition according to what the market needs. Stay flexible in your mission and your communication.
- Put yourself in the shoes of the decision-maker: Provide a sustainable solution and approach your conversations with organizations from both an environmental and economic standpoint.
- Your client is a person, not an organization: In corporates, you’ll find stakeholders with different needs and objectives. Get to know them — this will speed up your understanding of internal dynamics and ultimately, the adoption of your solution.
📈 For corporates
- PoCs and pilot projects are extremely powerful methods to test and validate ideas: Real data and proven metrics are much more powerful than just having the theory. It gives your business unit a chance to ask where can we start, how can we scale this and much more.
- Do not view startups as your suppliers: Startups are not your normal suppliers. You have to consider a startup as a part of your innovation process and work hand-in-hand for the project to be successful.
- Find alignment when it comes to KPIs early: Measure and align on the desired outcomes to effectively identify and leverage co-benefits, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.
