A worker wearing protective gear handles a tapered roller bearing in a factory

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Gearing up an industrial equipment manufacturer for the circular economy

Circular consulting

Supporting a business-to-business industrial equipment manufacturer to define a successful strategy for their transition to the circular economy, and the first steps on this journey.

Pursuing ambitious sustainability goals, organizations increasingly see the circular economy as a crucial driver. Yet, navigating this path requires clarity on the most fruitful and actionable steps to take. A global B2B industrial equipment manufacturer, committed to high sustainability standards, approached Stena Circular Consulting for circular economy guidance. We assisted by defining a short to mid-term roadmap to kickstart their transition.

After reviewing the brand’s sustainability strategy, our team sought to understand the organizational level of knowledge of a circular economy through an all-staff survey and designated interviews. Given that this maturity assessment indicated limited organizational prerequisites for creating real change, we organized a circular economy introductory lecture and a circular economy workshop with the management team.

To ensure that the company wouldn’t get stuck with small scale pilots, by having the capabilities for lasting change and scalable solutions, we drawn and iterated on four development areas for the company’s circular economy transition:

Enabling the circular economy transition: four pillars

DESIGN FOR CIRCULARITY – products designed for circularity enable resource efficiency and the deployment of innovative business models.

CIRCULAR RESOURCE FLOW – recycled material sourcing and take-back systems enable repair, reuse, refurbishment, or remanufacturing, both mitigating supply chain risks.

CIRCULAR ECONOMY INTELLIGENCE – the organizational culture encourages knowledge & skills development to accelerate the transition to a circular economy through long-lasting change.

ECOSYSTEM COLLABORATION – strong partnerships allow to catalyze a mutual and symbiotic shift to a circular economy.

These four development areas helped generate and evaluate implementable actions that could accelerate change. A collection of short and mid-term suggested actions were collected, prioritized, and collated into high-impact initiatives.

Furthermore, the collaboration allowed the management team to find common grounds about the circular economy, through:

ALIGNED INCENTIVES AND MOTIVES

LONG-TERM PERSPECIVE, BEYOND THE CURRENT SETUP

IN-DEPTH INVOLVMENT

The project confirmed that a significant challenge for businesses in a circularity shift most often lies within the existing organizational structure. Our team successfully provided applicable insights and concrete steps to initiate a circular economy transition and look forward to working with more organizations to address this type of barriers.