Giving Compass' Take:

• Meg Wilcox highlights six circular economy trends that we are likely to see in 2020. 

• How can funders work to advance circular economy practices? What are the barriers to advancing circular economies? 

• Read about how businesses can embrace circular models. 

Circular economy approaches advanced in 2019, particularly for plastics and packaging. The explosion of media interest in the ocean plastics crisis has driven both consumers and regulators to seek action. Companies are responding with new strategies to reduce waste.

"There’s a stronger sense of urgency in the consumer products and retail space to move more aggressively to go after recycled content and to go after a wider variety of solutions," Bridget Croke, vice president of external affairs at Closed Loop Partners, told GreenBiz.

In some cases, it’s a bit of back to the future, with businesses seeking to close the packaging loop with new product delivery models that actually existed a long time ago but now have a modern twist. In other cases, its new, breakthrough technologies for chemical recycling of plastic materials that companies are increasingly getting behind.

Momentum is building, although we’ve still got a long way to go in creating a fully circular economy. Looking to 2020 and beyond, here are six emerging trends to keep an eye on:

  1. Policymakers seek to hold producers responsible for waste
  2. Companies collaborate to reuse materials and packaging
  3. Consumer brands explore refill models
  4. Chemical recycling moves closer to commercial scale
  5. Fast fashion is the new ocean plastics
  6. Tensions rise over toxics

Read the full article about circular economy trends by Meg Wilcox at GreenBiz.