10Rs of Circular Economy: strategies sustainable businesses use

As responsible consumers, we are always looking for ethical brands and sustainable alternatives. But what do we look for, and how do we know a brand is greenwashing or not? Well, through the lens of Circular Economy, we discover that there are ten strategies that sustainable businesses use to become better for society and the environment. Then it becomes easy for us to identify sustainable brands, and even begin building a relationship with them.

When Reduce, Reuse and Recycle are no longer enough

Until recent years, the 3 Rs of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle were boasted as the solution to human civilization’s waste issue. But after all the policies and decades, environmental problems have been exacerbated, and consumption patterns remain painfully high.

Circle Economy found that the global rate of reuse and recycling continues to be stagnant at 8.6% from 2016 to 2021, yet material extraction (to Make more products) climbed between 12.8%.

While consumption increased, recycling remained uninspiring. This is why many realize we need a change in the system and mindsets.

10 Rs of circularity, 10 strategies to become sustainable

And that is where “new Rs” come in. Different organizations may define different sets of Rs, but they don’t deviate much from one another because they are based on the same foundations. These foundations include avoiding creating waste, maximizing material usage over multiple product lifetimes, and extending the use of materials in each cycle.

Each of the Rs represents a strategy that sustainable businesses deploy. The higher an R is, the more creative the business has to be, and the more effort they have put in, thus more deserving of our support. In addition, businesses may implement more than one strategy in different aspects of their business model. We have divided them into three phases to understand where they used the strategies.

Here are the 10 Rs and how we can use them to see which businesses or brands are sustainable. We will also share examples where these strategies are demonstrated in Japan. You will find that many ideas are not geographically constrained. They may even be found in your local community too!

3 Rs of Design: designing business models

Brands that use these 3 Rs deserve applause because they sat down to change the old ways by designing or redesigning a better way we consume.

Refuse

“If you don’t need it, you don’t need to buy it” is how Refuse would work on an individual level. You can even think of this as the upgraded version of Reduce, “buy less instead.”

Businesses can use this concept, too, and more easily than we think. For example, can we refuse to make more products? Developed countries tend to overmake and overconsume. Policy can push for a Refuse model, for example European Union’s Single-use Plastic ban, based on the 10 of the most common plastic waste found on the beaches, top being plastic drink bottles and cigarette filters.

Unfortunately, Japan is not committed to taking decisive action against plastics, resulting in slow awareness and adoption away from plastics. That’s not to say there has been no action taken. We see many Japanese SMEs taking the lead, and one of our favorite examples is the Veg Out Cafe in Kyoto. It went through a long, purposeful process to look at its operations to be a vegan, zero-waste cafe. It includes re-evaluating consumers’ need to remove plastic straws and wet towels (which is highly common in Japan) and even taking a retreat with all the staff at Kamikatsu’s Zero Waste Center to realign everyone’s vision for zero-waste operations.

Rethink

Rethink here refers to changing the fixed mindset we have with products. These can include redefining a different way to use the products and how long a product can be used. And it’s more often used than we realize.

One such manifestation of Rethinking how we use things is the Sharing Economy. It challenges the status quo with questions like “why do we need to buy new?” “why do we need to own?” and “What happens when a Product becomes a Service?”

In major cities around Japan, we will find shared bicycle services. At least four services in Tokyo provide “Share Cycle” rides, including Docomo Bike Share, HELLO CYCLING, PiPPA and COGICOGI. We’d like to see Japanese cities take one step further to promote these services by making streets more cycle-friendly.

Another example is more intimate to our lives: our homes. CLAS received funding to expand its operations last year to provide a subscription service for individuals and corporations to share furniture and home appliances. With rapidly changing lifestyles and a market of people who often move around the country (e.g., work-related or changes in life stage), this new business model redefines our relationship with home and its interiors.

Reduce

We should be familiar with this, and being third on the list shows how powerful this can impact society and the environment. Numerous brands put Reduce into action because they gave thought to “do we really need this much?”

In the fashion industry, Liv:ra often catches attention as a role model for sustainable business. Besides using a natural dyeing process and selling their garments online, Liv:ra also uses the Make-to-Order model. The brand has a loyal following, and the followers resonate with the brand’s mission and purpose. Products are only made upon order, and followers do not seek to receive their orders “as soon as possible.” Therefore, Liv:ra holds zero stock. There is no waste from holding excess inventory, demonstrating Liv:ra as the ideal business model against the over-manufacturing, over-consuming culture.

We can use technology to find opportunities to Reduce too. Japanese startup DATAFLUCT provides an AI service to help grocery retailers identify where waste is to optimize profit. It even takes weather and temperature conditions into account for precise predictions. Retailers can then reduce ordering stock and even when to reduce them.

5Rs of Consumption: minimizing the impact of using

It is undeniable that to live is to consume, be it clothes, food, or energy. However, there are businesses providing products and services so that we can consume sustainably.

Reuse

And one of those ways is Reuse! This is one of the best ways to create a zero-waste lifestyle since it moves us away from the disposable concept while not sacrificing convenience. (Yes, it is possible to go sustainable without the cost of convenience!)

Ellen MacArthur Foundation has extensive research on this, even proposed four models of a Reuse Revolution:

• Refill at Home – SodaStream is a home soda-making machine aiming to end the need to purchase soda and the plastic bottles that they come in. One cylinder cycle for creating carbonated water can potentially remove up to 60 1L soda plastic bottles from ending up in the landfill or ocean, as the same SodaStream bottle for many lifetimes.
• Refill on the Go – Sell-by-weight businesses are examples of the Refill on the Go model. For example, Zero Waste Market in Kyoto encourages customers to bring personal containers to stock up on things like condiments, wine, nuts and more. Food nets or cotton bags are encouraged for more items with a bigger body like vegetables and fruits. (If you forget to bring them, Zero Waste Market sells these sustainable alternatives too!) This supermarket has even developed an intuitive system to facilitate the measuring system.
• Return from Home – There is an alternative to all the cardboard boxes we get from home delivery services like Amazon and Rakuten. Aeon, one of Japan’s top retailers, collaborates with TerraCycle to use the Loop system, where Aeon’s products will be delivered in Loop Totes. This reusable bag will be collected, cleaned, and used for the next delivery.
• Return on the Go – COVID-19 brought about a high demand for takeouts, leading to increased waste of disposable food containers. A few Japanese startups are tackling the problem, like Re&Go and its reusable takeout containers. Customers can use Re&Go’s containers through the LINE app when ordering from Re&Go’s partners. They can also return the containers to the nearest partner, where the containers will be brought to a local company for cleaning and reuse. It is doing a pilot in Tokyo after its first pilot run in Okinawa.

We think there are still many untapped potentials for Japan to use the four models for Reuse.

Repair

The term “Right of Repair” has not found the same amount of discussion in Japan as in Europe. However, repairing is not a foreign idea, and the Japanese are more accepting of repairs, having built their culture on the concept of mottainai.

There is a quiet, gradual increase in the number of repair shops. While there are chains of repair shops, independent SMEs have launched their own businesses. We are interested to see if this hints a shift from number of manufacturers to a number of repair craftspeople, while is reminiscent of the Circular Edonomy, when Repair was a norm.

Major businesses are also introducing Repair into their service mix. Japanese brand MOTHERHOUSE sells fair trade bags made ethically in factories in Bangladesh and Nepal. As one of the brands taking active action for sustainability, MOTHERHOUSE took a step further by providing a care, repair, recovery & remake service called SOCIAL VINTAGE. Customers can rejuvenate MOTHERHOUSE leather products (like colour retouching and waterproofing), remove stains, mend tears and more. The Repairing model extends the lifespan of its products.

Fashion is not the only area adopting Repair as a business model. Repair Lab by FabLab holds a repair workshop where anyone can bring their broken electronic devices and try to fix them. The concept behind the workshop is to inspire people to think about repairing as the first step to dealing with any broken products, rather than discarding and replacing them (Perhaps the participants will be most accepting of the Fairphone!)

Refurbish

Refurbish explores how we can revitalize old products. Is there a way to restore the faded dye on clothes so they can be worn as something new? Can we replace the torn fabric of an old seat or sofa so it can continue to be enjoyed? This is different from upcycling, where new, different value is created. Instead, Refurbish brings back the original value the product was made for.

FROMSTOCK attempts to tackle the problem of large amounts of clothing being incinerated or thrown into landfills through kurozome. Kurozome is an ancient Japanese dyeing technique that uses black dye with minimal environmental impact. One of the advantages of kurozome is the concealment of damage or imperfection on used clothing, thus giving the clothes new life.

Remanufacture

Making new products from discarded ones is what Remanufacturing is about. It sounds intuitive, but there are obstacles like degradation of material when reused, so technological advances are needed.

Tokyo-based JEPLAN began with an idea: where can we get the oil needed to make t-shirts without using fossil fuels? From already existing t-shirts! It then launched the brand “BRING” and has been highly active in collaborating with various partners to collect used clothing and then turn them into new clothes. Not only does the company divert textile waste from ending up in the incinerator or landfill, but its original recycling technology also cuts the need for tapping on fossil fuels. JEPLAN also launched BRING PLA-PLUS to upcycle discarded plastics into new products.

Repurpose

When a product cannot be repaired or refurbished, it doesn’t mean it should be treated as garbage yet.

Upcycling falls under the Repurpose, where we take the “broken” products and fix them to create different values than they had before. For example, Japanese music chain store Shimamura Musical Instruments upcycling old instruments into furniture and decor.

Zenbird has featured numerous unique upcycling projects from Japan, illustrating how creative these projects can be.

For example, LOVST turns discarded apple to create apple bio-leather. They crowdfund their apple leather bags, which helps them decide how many items to produce without incurring waste.

Many upcycling projects involve fashion, but upcycling can be seen in different industries, such as upcycling malt lees into paper. Craft Beer Paper is created from used malt lees after brewing craft beer. The malt lees were collected from Yokohama and passed to a paper manufacturer in Nara Prefecture who had the skills to turn them into recycled paper.

And a big part of upcycling involves art too. Artist Yukito Nishinaka has worked with a bottle maker and recycler to create a timeless piece of glass exhibition, Eternal Affinity, which is installed at Kyoto’s Honen-in Temple. It is incredible how well the work blends into the environment, too!

2 Rs of Return: giving waste a way out

These are the final two 2 Rs. When a product is beyond repairs, and reuse becomes impossible, we want to try returning the materials into our resource cache or, as a last resort, use them as energy.

Recycle

Recycling is how we recover materials from waste, often through material or chemical recycling. Recycle takes the last second priority in the 10 Rs, which is scary to think how government policies have been so focused on the last two Rs. However, Recycle is still necessary for all the waste we have created and will be creating.

Internationally known Ishizaka Sangyo is a waste treatment company that is ahead of the Circular Economy game in Japan. It boasts a 98% reduction and recycling rate through technological development and sorting. But the only reason it is stopping at 98% is to remind society that we still need a fundamental change to our consumption patterns and understand that waste should be not waste – an essential lesson we must learn.

Zero Waste Town Kamikatsu is another name known internationally for its success as Japan’s zero-waste town. For the past two decades, Kamikatsu residents and the local government have worked tirelessly to eliminate their waste. To achieve that, Kamikatsu residents recycle and reuse all their garbage. They divide their trash into 45 categories at the Zero Waste Center, while giving still-usable items to other residents. The commitment to recycling is why Kamikatsu has become a case study for many worldwide.

We often miss out on the opportunity for urban mining too. We can extract precious metals from them rather than turn to mining activities (which have negative social and environmental impacts). ZAURUS is a smartphone recycling service in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Here at their office, they will help remove the battery, crush the smartphone with their specialized machine and send the materials to a specialist to separate the materials. It is a service that gives you peace of mind, too, knowing your privacy is protected.

By the way, downcycling is a form of recycling. The most popular form is composting, which is an essential step to close the loop on a circular food system. Decomposed food enriches compost to grow new food, which encourages sustainable agriculture. The interest in composting has been picking up in Japan, with a few home options available, including LFC Compost Kits and econawa.

Recover

Recover is the final R, used as the final resort when the other 9 Rs are eliminated as possibilities. The most common form of this in Japan is the incineration of combustible garbage to recover as energy.

Use the 10 Rs to find your sustainable alternative

“Business as usual” is not a choice. Moviegoers might recall a memorable scene from Moneyball, where Brad Pitt’s character goes “adapt or die,” and the mood is the same. The world is making a shift towards sustainability. We, consumers, are getting more eco-conscious, and will seek out sustainable products. Businesses who think otherwise will risk fading into irrelevance.

And as we have learned, many businesses have already begun taking steps toward making their businesses circular. We are also wiser, knowing the 10 Rs to identify the level of commitment a business has for society and the environment, and perhaps even create a virtuous cycle to tackle the current climate crisis.