2021 Impact Report

Converted citywide analysis into a neighborhood scale, in order to define how different neighborhoods can take action.

Created toolkits to help build the innovation ecosystem and catalyze cross-sector collaboration.

The city of Krakow has already implemented five bulk waste collection stations and adopted a new policy. They will also train their municipal staff about the circular economy.

Krakow was recognized for its high recycling rates and for developing a circular strategy.

The Innovation Barn was one of our five proposed circular business cases that could help to divert waste, create jobs, and generate revenue.

Showcase the circular economy in action by creating jobs, growing businesses, and reusing waste materials.

Thanks to our partners at Envision Charlotte:

Additional business models around recycling concrete, textile, and electronics may be implemented in the future.

+70 MWs of solar energy.

+20 MWs of integrated battery capacity.

11 new clients.

1,247 new buildings.

25 new buildings on automated control.

A fully-fledged aquaponics greenhouse at De Ceuvel, the living lab for circular urban development, which we helped create in Amsterdam in 2012.

The aquaponics system feeds a large vertical planting wall. It is irrigated from the top, allowing water to flow through each layer of plants. The water used for irrigation is pumped up from a tank that contains catfish. After flowing through each layer of plants, the water is cycled back to the fish tank, where nutrients are continuously added by the catfish.

This is a space for training and learning. It aims to inspire others to design, build, and manage their own small-scale aquaponics units.

New aquaponics management software system.

User guide on how to replicate the design.

Site visits and workshops.

Edible flowers, salad greens, hot peppers, herbs, and catfish are currently being grown at the greenhouse.

Faithful to circular economy principles, some of these are served at the cafe next door.

Used AI and machine learning, followed by manual validation, to identify all relevant policies.

We then graded the policies by basic, binary criteria that have proven to provide the best outcomes for NbS.

We used a case studies approach to map where NbS funding is flowing.

This first iteration of the tracker mapped more than 220 policies across 80 countries.

A thorough policy analysis helped us to identify best practices, exemplifying case studies and solutions.

Future versions of the tracker will include more policies from more countries as we refine our search algorithm to include non-English languages.

We measured all materials entering and leaving the ICU in 2019, from disposables and medicines to cleaning supplies and textiles, including packaging materials.

We identified seven hotspots where changes could be made at either the hospital or supplier level, ultimately helping the ICU to move from a linear to a circular system.

Hospital staff have set up design research assignments with a university, engagements with suppliers, and a media campaign to raise awareness.

We calculated the company’s first global greenhouse gas emissions baseline across Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 impact categories.

A supplier engagement roadmap allowed us to prioritize key material streams for impact reduction and opportunities for closed-loop battery recycling.

We assessed emission reduction pathways that would be required to meet Net-Zero Standard goals in line with science-based targets.

The baseline assessment examined strategies for impact reduction, including:

Engaged more than 40 companies and organizations in the electronics supply chain.

Landscape assessment report compiled insights from research, stakeholder surveys, and interviews.

An industry-wide vision of a circular and ethical supply chain for electronics, where incentives are aligned to ensure products and materials circulate at their highest value for as long as possible.

A comprehensive report to stimulate dialogue and inform strategic circular interventions among electronics producers and their extended networks.

Mapped current CE funding landscape: key financiers and funds involved in order to consolidate best practices, key drivers, barriers, and priority gaps.

Reviewed and consolidated 19 flagship reports published by leading knowledge institutes and financial institutions.

Surveyed 87 initiatives.

Undertook 28 in-depth interviews with representatives from municipalities, fund managers, public and private funds, innovation, acceleration programs, and think tanks.

Identified acute funding gap for initiatives with the greatest potential for retaining value: Refuse, Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, and Repurpose.

We proposed to pilot an ecosystem approach to financing circular innovation, by setting up a Circular Innovation Ecosystem (CIE), a mission-driven investment network to fund, support, and enable an environment where circular solutions can thrive.

Our consortium is now working on fundraising.

We developed a first-of-its-kind systems methodology to measure the impacts, drivers, and pressures that influence six sectors in the blue economy (an area well known for its scarce data).

With this new financial model, we estimated how changes to the physical environment and policy discourse affect assets and revenues relating to the blue economy.

A new, publicly available tool to identify potential stranded assets, allowing investors and financiers to steer away from high-risk investments with negative environmental impacts toward safer investments with nature-positive outcomes.

The model shows that damage from climate change to coastal real estate, ports, shipping, marine renewable energy, and seafood will increase in the next 15 years.

If no action is taken, nearly $4 trillion is at risk to coastal infrastructure and almost $3 trillion to global fisheries.

Up to 25% of the value to sensitive, ocean-dependent resources like fisheries may be at risk if no action is taken.

Extensive trend and risk portfolio analysis.

We applied key systems thinking techniques to help explain and understand the dynamics and structural root causes that are causing systemic malfunctioning and require transition.

We identified a long list of opportunity areas for investments in core transition pathways.

We developed a strategic roadmap for guiding the asset manager in pursuing these systemic investment opportunities.

We conveyed a sense of urgency to invest in new diversified areas — or risk disruption and stranded assets.

The asset manager is currently working internally with management of its diverse portfolio of assets on fundamentally transitioning their investments strategies and underlying business models.