You’re not here for ESG slogans.
You’re here because you run something real: a product, a P&L, a team, a supply chain.
This corner of Linking Sustainability is for founders and operators who like the idea of the circular economy — but only if it survives contact with:
- unit economics,
- messy operations, and
- impatient investors.
If you care about margins, execution and defensibility first — and you’re curious how circularity can actually help — this is your reading track.
What you’ll find in this section
In the Founders & Operators track, we look at circularity as:
- a business design tool (not a moral label),
- a way to earn more revenue per asset (not just recycle better), and
- a potential moat in supply chains, data and relationships (not just brand storytelling).
You’ll see fewer buzzwords and more:
- money flows,
- loops and lifetime value,
- operational pitfalls,
- investor behaviour.
Think of this as a mini “circular MBA” focused on people who actually ship things.
Start here: Your anchor article
1. Founders & Operators: Circular Ideas That Actually Make Business Sense
👉 Click here
This piece sets the tone for the entire track.
It covers:
- where capital is really flowing in circular economy (who’s funding what, and why),
- the three types of circular models investors tend to back (infrastructure, enablers, asset loops),
- brutal reasons why so many circular startups die (wrong payer, reverse logistics hell, policy dependence), and
- a founder’s checklist to see if your idea is circular and investable, not just “nice”.
Read this first. Everything else on this page builds on that mental model.
Then zoom out: the big-picture business logic
2. Circular Economy 101: A Business Person’s Guide (Not a Policy Lecture)
👉 Click here
This article explains circular economy in pure business language:
- what actually changes between “take–make–waste” and circular models,
- how value is created across use, reuse and recovery,
- why CFOs should care: margin expansion, risk, and lifetime value,
- what has to shift inside a company — design, ops, supply chain, finance.
If you’ve ever sat in a sustainability meeting thinking “ok, but where is the money?”, this is the reset button.
Go concrete: one car, five earnings
3. How Car Makers Earn from the Same Vehicle 5 Times
👉 Click here
Here we use automotive as a live case study to show circularity as normal business, not a side project:
- first sale of the new vehicle,
- finance and leasing revenue wrapped around that sale,
- years of service, parts and accessories,
- certified pre-owned resale and buyback loops,
- end-of-life value in parts, materials and data.
You don’t have to be in auto to benefit.
The question this article plants in your head is:
“For every asset I put into the world,
how many times do I actually earn from it?”
See where things break: operational pitfalls
4. Where Circular Models Fail in Automotive – 7 Operational Traps
👉 Click here
This one is about failure, which is where the real learning sits.
Using automotive examples (BMW’s heated-seat subscription, remanufacturing hurdles, ELV compliance mentality, mobility pilots like Share Now, Renault’s Re-Factory, etc.), it shows how circular models die when:
- reverse logistics is an afterthought,
- dealers and partners are incentivised against the model,
- end-of-life is treated as compliance, not value,
- IT and data are too weak to support traceability and reuse.
Even if you’re in a different industry, the traps are the same:
bolting circular ideas onto a linear system
without changing incentives, flows and data.
This article pairs perfectly with the Founders & Operators anchor piece: one shows the money logic, the other shows the operational landmines.
How to use this section (as a founder/operator)
If you’re short on time:
- Read the anchor:
Founders & Operators: Circular Ideas That Actually Make Business Sense
→ sanity-check your current or future idea against the checklist. - Scan the big picture:
Circular Economy 101 – A Business Person’s Guide
→ get a clean, non-jargony mental model so you can talk to boards, CFOs and teams. - Pick the auto pair if you work with assets:
- How Car Makers Earn from the Same Vehicle 5 Times
- Where Circular Models Fail in Automotive – 7 Operational Traps
→ use them as templates to think about your asset, your loops and your traps.
You can do all four pieces in one sitting, or keep this page bookmarked and use it as a reference.
What’s coming next for founders & operators
Over time, this section will grow into:
- teardown-style pieces on real circular startups and corporates,
- simple tools like loop-level unit economics worksheets,
- sector-specific journeys (auto, appliances, mobility, B2B equipment, etc.).
If you want to stay close to this theme:
- follow Pankaj Arora on LinkedIn for shorter, founder-focused posts, and
- keep this page as your entry point whenever you’re revisiting circular strategy.
Linking Sustainability 