Steve Bradfield’s words drive the story home:

It’s a philosophy of abundance and growth. It’s about not being guilty about consumption—if you can create the materials that can stay in perpetual loops. And so, for a businessperson, that is pretty attractive, because it doesn’t talk about all the negative aspects of resource scarcity and depletion; it talks about taking technical nutrients made of oil and keeping them in circulation so that we don’t deplete all of our resources.

The concept of the circular economy is not new. Throughout the world, companies similar to Shaw are experimenting with solutions similar to EcoWorx in an effort to develop competencies and frameworks necessary to move from line to circle. Simply put, the circular economy is “generative by design,” as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation puts it: nothing is wasted; everything is going around in a circle.

The foundation, which counts major corporations such as Renault, BT,and Cisco among its founding partners, suggests that this simple idea is worth more than $2 trillion to the global economy—no wonder that executives, designers, and consultants alike are jumping on it. Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever, is among them:

An economy that extracts resources at increasing rates… without consideration for our natural planetary boundaries cannot continue indefinitely. In a world of soon to be nine billion consumers…, this approach will hamper companies and undermine economies. We need a new way of doing business. The concept of a circular economy promises a way out. Here, products do not quickly become waste, but are reused to extract their maximum value before safely and productively returning to the biosphere. Most importantly for business leaders, such an economy can deliver growth.

And it is all built on a solid, well-tested set of ideas.