Is your workforce strategy skills-powered?
A skills-first approach is emerging as the future of workforce strategy. Jeff Schwartz and Mike Worthington identify the key questions to consider and explain how it’s done....
Brain Circuits
3 ways for businesses to adopt a circular model
Companies need a new, holistic approach to sustainability if they are to head off criticism and accusations of greenwashing. Carlos Cordon outlines three potential pathways to a circular business model.
1. The subscription model
In the subscription model, customers lease products for as long as they need them rather than buying them outright. They receive ongoing access to the latest products and return unused products to the company to be recycled or upgraded. 
Benefit
Manufacturers can refurbish products or recycle their constituent parts more effectively, which can significantly reduce the need for virgin manufacturing.
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2. Deposit return schemes
A growing number of European countries have introduced deposit return schemes that mandate participation by companies selling certain consumer goods (such as soft drinks in plastic containers), with consumers paying a small charge on each purchase, refundable when they return the item. 
Benefit
When implemented efficiently, such schemes can drive up recycling (although the consumer goods companies participating in them must find ways to retrieve the plastic collected, often from disparate and widespread sources).
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3. Deliver and return 
In deliver and return schemes, consumers voluntarily return used/spent items for recycling by the retailer/manufacturer. The main current example of this is coffee pods.
Benefit
Such schemes have the potential to be scaled up across an industry. (Nestlé, for example, is attempting to develop an industry-wide pod recycling system which it describes as “the only viable pathway to a truly global aluminum coffee capsule recycling solution.”)
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Key takeaway
Companies need to think about the type of business they want to be and how they want to contribute to the world they want for the future. This means they have to confront the sales versus sustainability dichotomy – and to do that they must explore new business models and address the operational challenges they bring.
Authors
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