WHAT IS THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY MATURITY ASSESSMENT?

The Circular Economy Maturity Assessment is a unique market offering, which differentiates from the competition in two respects:

• The strategic focus, i.e. it takes into account the specific strategic priorities of your business;
• Tangible manufacturing aspects such as waste, energy, packaging, product design, freight efficiency, which have the potential to create a real impact on your business.

 

HSSMI’s CEMA is a unique process aimed at business leaders and ESG / CSR professionals who are struggling with these problems:

• Our business has sustainability, circular economy, or net zero targets but isn’t sure how to implement them;
• Our business has sustainability, circular economy, or net zero targets but isn’t sure how to assess and measure progress or assign KPIs;
• Our business is under pressure to demonstrate we have a sustainability plan but we don’t know how to go about putting one together yet;
• Our ESG / CSR / sustainability team is struggling to get the necessary senior-level buy-in on sustainability activities.

As part of conducting a Circular Economy Maturity Assessment of your business, you can expect to receive:

• Training material on circular economy;
• Completed circular economy maturity assessment, with current and future state scores and prioritised elements identified;
• Visual representation of CEMA status on radar charts;
• CEMA roadmaps in both simple (project titles, named project lead and timing) and detailed formats;
• Final report summarising process and results.

The CEMA is appropriate for businesses of a range of sizes, from SMEs to large organisations.

The CEMA is appropriate for companies with a range of experiences in circular economy, from those at the beginning of their journey to those with experience but looking to shake things up.

Whether you are an innovation and sustainability veteran or a company just embarking on your journey, the CEMA can help you set targets and build a roadmap to take you to your ideal state of circularity.

HSSMI is a sustainable manufacturing innovation consultancy, with a unique focus on circular economy.

Our manufacturing experience, coupled with extensive skills and capabilities in circular economy, allows us to provide an independent perspective on your organisation’s journey towards circularity.

We appreciate that each manufacturing business is different and endeavour to provide tailored solutions that work for your business’s way of thinking.

The CEMA process is comprised of four key components. It is best delivered in-person with senior executives and leaders within a business, spanning as many divisions as possible, such as production, procurement, after-sales, finance, and HR. If necessary, it is possible to adapt and deliver the CEMA online as well.

 

Image: CEMA process from inputs to outputs

 

FIRST STAGE

At the first stage, we introduce participants to the value and principles of circular economy. We then take your business through the Circular Economy Maturity Assessment, which evaluates your business on six domains: systems thinking, innovation, collaboration, stewardship, transparency, and value optimisation.

Your business needs to assess itself twice: once for where it stands today, and again for where it wants to get to at a self-determined point in the future. For example, your business may have a new product launch in five years, and may choose that date in order to make that product its most sustainable yet.

This exercise will generate a radar chart plotting the current and future state scores, which will show where the biggest gaps are, and where you might find “easy wins”.

 

Image: Example of a radar chart

 

SECOND STAGE

At the next stage, we review the priorities for your business as a whole. This is to ensure that circular economy priorities and activities support the key aims of your business rather than functioning as a separate activity.

This step is key for several reasons: it makes circular economy priorities inseparable from key business priorities; it helps identify buy-in from key stakeholders across the business; and helps your business prioritise which circular changes are more crucial. At this stage, top priorities and key owners for priorities are also identified.

 

THIRD STAGE

The third stage involves creating a detailed roadmap for the prioritised activities. This step helps build buy-in from key stakeholders and assigns ownership and timeframes of deliverables.

We use an open-source whiteboard software for this stage so that all participants can log in and participate. At this stage, you may choose to involve delivery teams.

At the end of these workshops, we will provide you with your roadmap (Excel format), your circular economy assessment (Excel format), and a final report (pdf format).

As a result of the CEMA workshops, your company will have an actionable roadmap, as well as an assessment that can be reviewed and improved over time in its journey to circularity.

However, we know that the challenge is huge, and we are on hand to help you implement those changes, regardless of whether or not you have carried out the CEMA workshops.

These are some examples of ways in which we can help you deliver circular economy activities:

• Ongoing circular economy road-mapping project management support;
• Provide compliance registers on circular economy regulations that your business needs to be aware of (e.g. producer responsibility legislation, vehicle end-of-life legislation);
• Conduct research on competitors, suppliers, market, SWOT, on aspects of sustainability;
• Engage with your suppliers to understand their circular economy approach and status including material and process impacts, part design and logistics;
• Provide waste audits, waste cost evaluations, waste management contract set-up;
• Conduct packaging evaluations and improvement strategies;
• Provide employee training in circular economy;
• Perform life cycle analysis studies, carbon footprint calculations, net-zero planning;
• Evaluate traceability requirements and recommend traceability solutions;
• Support circular economy target setting and reporting, both internal and public as well as sustainability accreditation.