A circular economy is based on the principles of ensuring that production and consumption systems contribute to sustainable development, including minimizing waste and pollution, reusing repairing, refurbishing, and recycling products longer as possible. With this way of thinking, the life cycle of products, equipment, and infrastructure is extended, and natural ecosystems can also regenerate well.

We understand that creating a circular business model is challenging and taking the wrong approach can be expensive that is why at CECP Hub, we support government ministries, departments, and agencies in their strategic goals in the development of circular economy policies, assist organizations and companies choose best environmentally sound technologies and develop innovative business circularity models.

We foster capacity sharing, de-materialization, and transformational processes whereby manufacturing and processing companies can shift from a product-centric to a service-centric business model and greener products/services logic.

The circular economy model employs any of the key “Rs” – re(think/design), reduce, reuse, renew, repair, recycle and retrieve listed here to create and sustain a closed-loop system that looks at the life-cycle of a product or service – from mining/extraction of natural resources to the design of products, manufacture, distribution, use, collection, and recycling or final disposal.

Re-design/think: Re-thinking and redesigning business models and solutions at every level to be mindful of how vital input resources/materials are used while at the same time not generating much waste along the production process.

Reduce: Reduce consumption of energy and materials by applying lean design principles and producing products that are made to last. Reduction leads to avoiding unnecessary (harmful) waste materials that would have ended up in landfills

Reuse: Reuse products by transferring them to another user. Consumers are already utilizing new physical and virtual market platforms where re-usable products can be sold and bought and these platforms are becoming more accessible to industries as well.

Repair: Repair components and parts so that products can be used longer by the user. With the slow-down of throw-away consumption, consumers are now thinking about purchasing products that last while at the same time giving the local “repair” shops increased patronage and income.

Repurpose: To achieve a circular economy, businesses can explore multiple options of repurposing and or refurbishing old products which can be resold or transformed into new products.

Recover: Recover embedded energy from non-recyclable waste material where feasible. Non-recyclable waste may at least be converted into energy through waste-to-energy processes such as combustion and gasification.

Recycle: Recycle materials and or resources by disassembling components and separating parts.

Simply put, Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) involves the continuous application of integrated, preventive, environmental strategies to processes, products, and services to increase overall efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment.

Over the past two decades, RE and CP approaches have been tested time and again and proven to help overcome key challenges within the industrial processing and manufacturing subsectors, thus making RECP a recognized and trusted methodology that has already been applied to raw material extraction, manufacturing, agriculture, fisheries, transportation, tourism, hospitals, energy generation, and information systems.

The RECP methodology addresses the three sustainability dimensions individually and synergistically: a) heightened economic performance through improved productive use of resources, b) environmental protection by conserving resources and minimizing industry’s impact on the natural environment, and c) social enhancement by providing jobs and protecting the wellbeing of workers and local communities

At CECP Hub, we do not apply the RECP methodology only to improving our clients’ production processes, but also apply it throughout the life cycle of their products and services, from the initial design phase through to the consumption, recycling, upcycling, and disposal phase.