Innovation Spotlight: Why Circularity Is No Longer a Sustainability Choice, It’s a Business Model
Innovation Spotlight is Colectivo’s series, authored by Lena Boudart, dedicated to real-world solutions already reshaping how our systems function, from materials and energy to nature and value chains. Rather than speculating about the future, we focus on what is already being built, tested, and deployed, and translate those insights into strategic signals for organisations navigating regulation, risk, and long-term resilience.
Real solutions. Real scale. Real implications.
Circular Economy Innovation: Inside One of the UK’s Most Advanced Recycling Centres
If your company produces, packages, ships, or sells anything… this matters. Veolia’s Southwark Recycling Centre model shows what’s possible when technology, design, and operations align. But it also exposes a hard truth: Most products and packaging today are not designed for a circular system, and businesses pay for that inefficiency. Despite this video being produced over 4 years ago, many of these realities remain today.
▶️ Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nSfr5uOsC8&t=1s
How EU Regulation Is Shaping the Circular Economy
“The EU Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) entered into force on 11 February 2025 and its general date of application is 18 months after that”. Under the new EU Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), the market is shifting from end-of-life recycling toward design for circularity. Based on Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste, the PPWR introduces the following key requirements:
By 2030, packaging placed on the EU market must meet new design-for-recycling and recyclability performance requirements.
Minimum recycled-content targets will apply to plastic packaging, while specific reuse and refill obligations will apply to certain sectors and packaging formats.
Harmonised labels will provide information about packaging materials and help consumers sort, return, and reuse packaging correctly.
From 2030, certain single-use packaging formats will be restricted, alongside new rules designed to reduce excessive packaging and empty space.
These rules are not optional compliance add-ons, they redefine the business model for packaging, pushing companies to internalise lifecycle impacts and rethink design upstream.
Learn more about the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation 2025/40 (PPWR), here: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/waste-and-recycling/packaging-waste_en
Companies that adapt early gain regulatory resilience, brand trust, and operational efficiency.Companies that don’t…could pay for it later.
How Colectivo Helps Organisations Act, Not Just Observe
Colectivo helps organisations move from sustainability awareness to decisions, programmes, and designs that work in the real world.
We support teams through:
Service and product audits to identify inefficiencies, risks, and circular opportunities
Circular innovation pilots and sprints to test, refine, and scale solutions quickly
Training, workshops, and masterclasses to upskill teams and embed sustainability into everyday decisions
Behaviour-driven sustainability strategy; understand how consumers actually behave, and design for real-world use, not ideal scenarios.
If your goal is future-proofing, cost control, and credible sustainability, this is not a moment to observe.
Businesses in Ireland: contact us at hello@colectivo.ie to explore how Green Plus funding via Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland can support your circular economy journey with generous grants.
👉 Ready to turn circularity into a competitive advantage?
Our Source: Going Green Media
This Innovation Spotlight draws on insights and field reporting from Going Green Media, a planet-first, solutions-focused media platform founded by Ben Brown and Ciara Doyle to counter climate doom with credible, real-world action. Over the past five years, they’ve visited 200+ projects globally, built a storytelling format reaching millions each month, and worked with leading brands and organisations to surface sustainability solutions that are already being built, tested, and deployed. For Colectivo, Going Green Media is a source of signal, not noise — offering an optimistic, grounded, systems-level, and action-oriented lens that defines this series.
About the Author
Lena Boudart is a design analyst at Colectivo. A French-Palestinian creative with an international journey across Europe and the Arab world, her work is shaped by empathy, cultural awareness, and hope. With a background in Digital Culture (King’s College London) and Customer Experience & Innovation (IE Business School), she explores how creativity and strategy can drive meaningful, sustainable change, with a particular focus on amplifying the voices of those already doing good.
