Arup & Ellen MacArthur Foundation convene Circular Leaders Group to accelerate circular economy transition

The group includes leading public and private sector organisations active across the built environment value chain, including Axa, Biomimicry 3.8, Bjarke Ingels Group, Cemex, Danone, Dorte Mandrup Architects, Holcim, ICLEI , Metsä Group, Peiner Träger GmbH, Saint Gobain, Urban Partners and VELUX.

Enabling collaboration, the Circular Leaders Group provides a platform for knowledge and skill sharing to develop high-impact projects that can drive change. 

Martin Pauli, Arup's global circular economy services leader, said: “Collaboration is essential to drive systemic circular change across the built environment value chain. We need more circular economy pioneers to take the lead, so we can strengthen cross-sector research and implement solutions to unlock this step change.”

Some of the focus areas that the group will explore include circular business models, insurance, policy and regulation, retrofit and repurposing of assets, low impact materials, and regenerative and nature-positive design.

The programme is structured around three central pillars including monthly circular innovation sessions, enabling and showcasing lighthouse projects as well as advocating for circular design and forming new coalitions. The key objective is to define innovative projects that allow collaboration between members.

During the kick-off workshop in Paris in early October, the group discussed how we can turn up the volume for circularity in the built environment. Emerging questions include what our current value chains can learn from natural models of reuse, and how can we incentivize materials and product producers and owners to adopt longer-term full lifecycle view.

This circular leadership initiative is connected to another flagship programme, the Circular Building’s Coalition, with blueprint projects sharing their learnings back with CLG members. It also builds on recent research undertaken by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Building Prosperity: Unlocking the potential of a nature-positive, circular economy for Europe, which demonstrates the value of a circular economy that is nature-positive and regenerative by design.