Building the first Africa-specific circular measurement framework

Is there evidence to support the circular economy’s promise in Africa?

The answer, quite simply, is no.

Plagues of locusts, depleted soils, and mountains of imported e-waste are some of the signs that the current economic Ponzi scheme of borrowing from the future is starting to crumble in Africa. And it’s harming the most vulnerable people first of all.???

Enter the circular economy: a utopian dream for planetary harmony, prosperity and social inclusion. Its promise has galvanised politicians and business leaders, as well as NGOs and citizens. But there is a risk of a missed opportunity if it tumbles into the same greenwashing hole as the term ‘sustainability’, becoming just a marketing tool that pushes real circular business models to the fringes. If that happens it would be felt most keenly by the people who stand to benefit the most from its potential, both now and in the future.

We need to do many things to prevent that from happening. Among them is building evidence - rapidly - to help bring about a circular business transition that would be truly revolutionary for African economies.

The starting point: Mapping the continent’s circular landscape

At Footprints Africa we are constantly being inspired by innovative business models in Africa. At the start of this year, we finished mapping 500 case studies of circular businesses from across the continent - the most complete and detailed record to date. We did this to show how much we have to learn about sustainable business models from Africa - not outside of it - and to inspire people across the continent by sharing compelling examples of what’s possible.????

But something is still missing. Data. Measurement. Evidence.?

We shouldn’t diminish the power of the stories we are telling. But we need to complement them with numbers to support decision-making, get funding and create the conditions for scaling properly circular business models. Beyond that, it’s also an important way to know when we are getting it wrong.??

For this reason, we have teamed up with the Sustainability Lab at the University of Messina. Together we’re collaborating with a pioneering group of five businesses operating across Africa to measure both their circularity and impact. We believe this will give a snapshot of the business models of the future, support companies to measure their progress towards circularity, and, perhaps more importantly, the impacts of their circular strategies.?

How does a business know if it’s really circular??

Research shows that the sustainability benefits of circular business models are often assumed rather than measured. Apparently, circular solutions may have unintended consequences, such as where recycling involves the consumption of disproportionate amounts of (mostly fossil fuel) energy.? And as the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report says, claims on the benefits of the circular economy for sustainability and climate change mitigation have limited evidence.

Resolving this question is a twofold challenge. On the one hand, circular businesses need better methods and tools to assess their impact, where they have ‘hotspots’ that need to be addressed, and where they might make improvements. On the other hand, the academic community needs more insights drawn from businesses’ experiences to improve measurement techniques and make them more accessible. Understanding businesses’ needs while guiding them through this measurement journey will provide us with insights that we can share and amplify.?

How we are doing it: The Strategic Circular Economy Impact Assessment framework

We are applying the strategic Circular Economy Impact Assessment (SCEIA) framework, which has been developed over a four-year period with support from EU's Cresting project. The SCEIA is a modular, adaptable framework that supports companies to make better strategic decisions and to build evidence to share with their customers, investors, and other stakeholders.?

The SCEIA framework has been road-tested with an expert panel of researchers and consultancies, and with five companies across Europe and Africa. Now we are working with a cross-section of circular businesses brought together through Footprints’ mapping work. In this first cohort the businesses focus on agriculture, e-waste, plastics, construction, and black soldier fly farming. It’s a deliberately diverse group - our objective is to ‘stress-test’ the framework with different business models - and covers five different countries: C?te d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa.?

The Strategic Circular Economy Impact Assessment process visualised ??

Our experience so far

Three things stand out from our work:?

• Businesses’ rationale for wanting to do the assessment varies widely, ranging from insights into the baseline environmental impact of their operations, to measuring their current circularity, to identifying the sustainability benefits of technological innovations.?
• Data collection is, as we expected, challenging, given the lack of commercially available datasets across the continent and the different levels of business formality. Less formal businesses will be able to use the initial collected data as a step to further professionalization. Overall, we have been very impressed with the cohort’s ability to produce useful data within a tight timeframe.??
• Most businesses also want to look at the social impacts of their operations as part of their circular impact. Our timeframe for the first cohort is too short to include this in scope. But assessment is a journey, and as businesses’ measurement experience increases they will be able to add more indicators over time - perhaps in the next phase of the project.??

What we will do next??

We are mid-way through this first phase of our measurement work and are closing the data collection process and finalizing our analysis. After this is done we will report back to the members of our first cohort, talking through the actions they might want to take based on our conclusions. A key output will be a short piece that talks to the barriers, opportunities and takeaways for other circular businesses working in these value chains. We’ll be publishing that here on LinkedIn and through other channels soon, so please watch this space.??

After that we plan to work with successive cohorts of African businesses, building the evidence base across even more business models and sharing our findings with pan-African and global audiences.???

Would you like to become part of this work, or do you have any questions?? Feel free to reach out to Erik Roos Lindgreen: [email protected].???

This phase of our work has been made possible through the invaluable support of GRID-Arendal.??