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Circular Supply Chains – An Overview

Key Take-Aways

• A circular supply chain describes the continuous flow of goods and services through sourcing, procurement, transportation, and warehousing, ensuring that renewable, excess, unused or unwanted energy, materials and capacity are cycled back into the supply chain in an effort to reduce waste and pollution.
• Adoption of a circular supply chain is a continuous process that provides numerous advantages to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) aiming for long term success. Some of these benefits include increased resilience, cost reduction, customer appeal, and increased sustainability.
• There is significant opportunity for Canadian businesses to adopt a circular supply chain as the circular economy aligns especially well with Canada’s resource rich industries.
• The circular economy aligns with various other supply chain strategies and organizational / production models that SMEs may already be employing, making the transition easier.
• There are a number of actions and processes that different functions in a business may implement to enable the circular supply chain.
• There are various challenges that an SME may experience while working to implement a circular supply chain, including limited awareness, limited demand, limited data, high costs, and a lack of policies and standards. Despite these challenges, several business risks are mitigated by implementation of circular practices.
• Every job role in a business has a similarly important part to play in implementing circular practices.