Circularity’s long road ahead: From waste reduction to value retention
At a glance
Infrastructure and business leaders are operating in a very different environment than they were even a few years ago. The conditions that supported decades of growth are becoming less predictable. Many organisations continue to pursue productivity gains through familiar operating models, yet those same models are exposing them to new forms of risk.
Today, many businesses are turning to circular economy principles because they need ways to operate under greater uncertainty. When materials and assets are discarded before their useful life is exhausted, operations lose what they have already paid for without realising its total value. Circularity starts by finding where value is being lost and making changes that help with value retention.
The real cost of the linear economy
Most businesses still operate within a take-make-discard model. This approach assumes that materials will remain readily available and that supply chains will continue to function as expected in perpetuity.
Recent developments have exposed the weakness of that assumption. When materials are difficult to source or arrive later than expected, the effects tend to surface elsewhere, often much later than the original problem appeared. Today, resource availability has moved beyond operational concern, increasingly dictating what companies can build and when they can build it.
At the same time, many net-zero strategies continue to focus on energy systems, which only addresses part of the problem. Products and materials account for approximately 45 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, suggesting decarbonisation is not merely an energy challenge.
By the time an asset reaches the end of its life, an organisation has already bought the materials and accepted the carbon footprint that comes with it. When it discards that asset before extracting its full value, it absorbs the loss. For decades, that was simply accepted as part of doing business.
Circularity suggests value that can still be used should not be treated as waste. Leaders who adopt a circular mindset tend to question assumptions that others take for granted and uncover opportunities that traditional business processes overlook. Why are we specifying this material? Why do we buy it this way? And especially, why are we treating an asset as if its value has already been exhausted?
Designing value into assets from the start
Circular opportunities are often considered only once a project is finished. By then, many of the important decisions have already been made. Around 80 percent of value-retention opportunities are actually determined by a products design. Once a project moves into procurement and construction, changing course becomes harder and more expensive.
Take one example — an organisation routinely orders 20 percent more cement than it needs as a buffer against uncertainty. Historical analysis later shows that the surplus has never been used - the additional material sat idle and was eventually discarded.
Waste often starts as a design decision, perhaps as a precaution or contingency. Once it is written into specifications and codified, people stop seeing it and assume it has always been that way.
The transition from a linear to circular economy begins when somebody asks whether a long-standing assumption still serves us.
Scaling circularity for resilience
The most significant gains emerge when organisations move beyond individual assets and begin examining systems, like supply chain resilience, for example.
Recent global disruptions have highlighted the value of recognising resources that exist closer to home, such as the valuable materials that are present in end-of-life batteries or industrial byproducts. Identifying how those resources can remain productive within the local economy for longer forms the foundation of circular thinking.
A circular precinct examines how resources move through a community or a region and identifies opportunities to keep value circulating locally. Investment decisions can reinforce regional priorities rather than isolated objectives; for instance, one organisation’s output can support another’s operations, while existing infrastructure can serve multiple users, like the Upper South Creek Advanced Water Recycling Centre in Western Sydney. Designed to produce high-quality treated water and biosolids for beneficial use, the facility also lays the groundwork for a future regional bioresource hub.
The benefit extends beyond material recovery too. Communities gain stronger economic resilience and regions create opportunities for new industries to emerge. Investment becomes more attractive because value remains within the system rather than leaking elsewhere.
Success depends on collaboration rather than technology alone. Stakeholders need a shared understanding of value and a shared commitment to retaining it. Organisations that work together often identify opportunities that would remain invisible in isolation.
Key takeaways
Think of circularity as a business design discipline rather than a waste strategy. The decisions that determine whether value is retained or lost are made early in project planning. These are built into the project itself, such as during material specification and design.
The strongest circular economy outcomes come from questioning assumptions that have become standard practice, just like the cement case study. In that example, nobody needed a new technology, only to challenge a decision that no one had revisited in a while.
We can also create more value by preventing waste than by finding clever ways to manage it later. Instead of asking “how do we deal with this waste?” we should instead ask, “why did we design a process that generates waste into the project in the first place, and how can we design it out?”.