What are the most effective ways to use thought leadership in the circular economy?

Effective ways to use thought leadership for circular economy is by educating the market about the current trends, issues, and ways to resolves the same. We also need to advocate regulatory approaches and industry standard by fostering collaboration and talk about innovation with building trust.

If you're looking to excel in circular economy thought leadership, as with everything else you do, start by defining a clear purpose. Before sharing insights, envision your circular economy goals, benefits, and potential challenges. Then, align your purpose with audience needs, differentiating your voice. This two-step process induces clarity guiding a compelling narrative, making you stand out in the conversation. A purpose-driven approach not only resonates but establishes you as a distinctive contributor. Boldly define your purpose, let it drive impactful contributions, and help you carve your niche in shaping the circular economy discourse.

Listen to the grassroots. They are in the lead now...unionization, dignity at the workplace, lawsuits for climate negligence and this list is growing worldwide.

1. Some of the ways to use thought leadership include creating content like blog posts, white papers, and case studies highlighting the benefits of the circular economy. 2. Participate in industry events and conferences to share your knowledge and expertise. 3. Frameworks and SaaS tools that can help to implement the circular economy are the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Circular Economy Framework and the Key Elements of the Circular Economy Framework and SaaS tools include SAP’s Circular Economy Solutions and Software, which can build a regenerative business, manage material flows, and embed circularity into core business processes.

There is so much work to be done. Use Design Thinking to start, ideating and creating solutions. But that's not where it ends, we need to create (eco)systems, real commitments between different stakeholders, adding value in a sustainable compliant manner to rules, laws, and equitable manner - Plan but also execute

Don't assume. Develop your circular solutions from evidence and based on data by going directly to your targeted audience to test your concepts. From my experience in developing circular business models across various countries and regions, the rationale for adoption is not so simple. While customers tell you they emphasize environmental causes for their purchasing decision, often times the main drivers for actually (not) choosing circular products are non-environmental (e.g. feasibility, convenience, price, (de)cluttering).

Don't lose hold of your desired outcome, but let go of specific solutions. When looking to achieve systemic change, it's easy to be sidetracked when the idea solution meets economic imperatives. Sometimes your stakeholders are not ready for wholesale change. If you push, it is easy to find things are just too difficult or just too expensive. Holding on to the outcome and not to your preferred first solution, will allow you to test and try and progress. I'm a big fan of "circularish" solutions that enable you to learn and take steps forward.

Thought leaders must view audience engagement as a form of collaboration. You must study your audience and create content that resonates with them. When it does, it will spark engagement that results in authentic conversations, discourse, and feedback. Their feedback should generate curiosity in your responses that will ultimately, help you further refine your content. When your content does not resonate with your audience, it's important to find out why from your audience and course correct. This should be a continual process. Audience engagement should not be reserved to written content. It should include a diverse library of content, including town hall meetings, industry events, peer engagements, interviews, and interactive polls.

Highlight the positivity authentically. Know your audience well and meet them where they are. Be openminded and listen to your most creative voices in your team. Don't be afraid to try new things. My team and I have produced multiple "silly" (i.e. approachable) clips to engage our institutional audience comprise of multiple generations to challenge their (non)sustainable behaviours. We have made a professional rap song to promote a campaign, receiving raving reviews thereby strongly enhancing the audience uptake. A smile can go a long way :)

There is so much work to be done and it needs us all to contribute to its success. It is a hard and long path but so rewarding.

We all know the "story of stuff". Excessive consumerism needs to end. Circular economy comes in as a great way to challenge the status quo: How many more things do people need to own? What are the circular business models that will create value for the business and users? To commercialise any circular business model, sustainability professionals need to work hand-in-hand with your product teams and client facing teams to really get to know your product: what is the core value and potential additional value would circular product brings, what are the challenges on, for example, reverse logistics, that you need to take a wider systematic approach to address?

There is intrinsic value in challenging the status quo to redefine and meet the challenges of a dynamic and global workforce. We cannot properly evolve without the addition of diverse and inclusive voices and varied experiences at the helm of leadership. We need cultural awareness, empathy, transformative and servant leadership. Homogenous group think must be eliminated at every facet of research, analysis, ideation, consulting, leadership, and workforce. Evaluate, modify and create new inclusive frameworks and policies with a global community in mind.

Be different, honest to others, and to the goal of creating a better tomorrow. Work collaboratively, and focus but without cynicism. With hindsight, it is easy to do the right thing but true leadership comes from making imperfect decisions with the available resources, and information. Then dealing with them, working problems out until they become the solution.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Couldn't be more true for circular economy. Some materials you retrieved from taking back scheme may not fit for your own production of the next product of a certain quality that meets stringent requirement (e.g. toy, medical equipment), but are more than enough for other types of applications. The art then is to choose who you collaborate with - start by getting to know your potential partners on how the vision and value of the respective organizations align. Working together also make the circular journey more fun!

Creativity lies on the shop floor! Create mechanisms to give everyone in your company a stake and a voice. The appetite to contribute to circularity is huge. We experience it with the popularity of a circular incubator I ran for a big multinational, employees at all levels wanted to contribute. It gave meaning to their work. Some of the best projects came from unsuspecting places.

Peer engagement is a powerful way to not only demonstrate your thought leadership, but interact with other industry thought leaders. Collaboration with fellow industry peers provides a platform for immense insights and perspectives to be shared. Problem-solving and information sharing with fellow industry peers in a circular economy helps generate awareness of important industry issues and amplify the voices of their thought leaders.

Engagement plays a vital role in building a loyal and active following. To enhance engagement, leveraging data is key. By analyzing audience interaction data, we gain valuable insights into what content resonates with our audience, along with demographics, timing, engagement rates, etc. LinkedIn offers useful data analytics tools to help us better understand these metrics. Utilizing this data effectively allows us to tailor our content and outreach strategies, optimizing engagement and fostering a stronger sense of community and collaboration in the circular economy.