# From the why to the how
*Activity type: page*

Once you have a good understanding of your context and the role you play within your value chain(s), you’ll be able to determine why the transition to a circular way of working makes sense for you. Consider making note of the tools and approaches mentioned so far, based on what appears most relevant for your business or organisation. Running through those methods within a team or group can quickly give you an indication of why a circular transition makes sense. After that, it’s time to tackle the* how*.**
As we’ve learnt in the course so far, the goal is to create a closed-loop system. When products and materials stop being used, they are circulated into another useful life, and we want to keep doing that for as long as possible. One way of doing that is through recycling, which is when we take a product that is no longer being used and break it down to its base materials to be turned into a new product again.

![Graphic shows Take, Make, Circulate, with a looped arrow labeled Recycle flowing from Circular to Take.](../../files/mod_page/content/0/takemakecircular-recycle-2.jpg)

But we can also take a short cut and repair the product instead of recycling it. By repairing the old product, we no longer need to break it down to its base materials first, so we’re effectively cutting the corner.

![Graphics show Take → Make → Circulate, with looped arrows for Repair (from Circulate to Make) and Recycle (back to Take).](../../files/mod_page/content/0/Takemakecirculate-repair-recycle%20%281%29-2.jpg)

And we can take an even shorter short-cut and go for reuse. Reusing an old product just the way it is means we don’t even have to bother with repair or recycling and everything involved with that.

![Graphics show Take → Make → Circulate, with loops for Repair (to Make), Reuse (to Circulate), and Recycle (back to Take).](../../files/mod_page/content/0/Takemakecirculate-repair-recycle-reuse-2.jpg)

The point is that the shorter we can make that short-cut, the smaller the loop becomes. Smaller loops equal less effort because we’re using less material to circulate the product, we’re using less energy to do so, less water, less transportation, etcetera. Smaller loops have a smaller impact, which implies that there is a hierarchy of sorts in the solutions we can consider to become more circular.

This hierarchy of strategies is reflected in common frameworks such as the waste hierarchy, which shares a similar message that waste avoidance is a better solution than recycling, for example. A framework that is very similar to the waste hierarchy, but builds on it with a bit more detail is the R-ladder. It ranks all the strategies that you could utilise in a circular economy based on that same principle that smaller loops have a smaller impact.

![R-ladder](../../files/mod_page/content/0/r-ladder-2.jpg)

The problem with these frameworks, however, is that they still hide a decent amount of complexity when it comes to applying the listed strategies. How to you plan for refurbishment rather than remanufacturing, for example? How do you determine if repair is a suitable option in your value chain? And what do you do if your business or organisation doesn’t really use physical materials in the first place?

Because of these difficulties, we recommend the use of a different framework that simplifies circular strategies for application, without losing the variety of solutions that are available. This framework is called the href="https://www.circularitydeck.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" (https://www.circularitydeck.com/),** and has been created by Dr. Jan Konietzko as part of his href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/417" target="_blank" rel="noopener" (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/417) at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The Circularity Deck includes five distinct approaches that can be used regardless of the materials or services you work with, and regardless of what industry sector you are active in. They have been adopted by European policy and have been tested by Sustainability Victoria to work well in the Victorian context.

These are the five approaches of the **Circularity Deck**:

- To **Narrow**, using less materials and creating more value with less;

- To** Slow**, using materials for longer and retaining value;

- To **Close**, using materials again and recovering value;

- To **Regenerate**, using clean materials and regenerating natural systems;

- And to** Inform**, using data to enable and support circular ways of working.

![5 approaches of the circularity deck - Narrow, Slow, Close, Regenerate and Inform](../../files/mod_page/content/0/5_approaches-2.png)

One of the great things about using these approaches, rather than the R-ladder, to get started with circularity, is that there is no hierarchy: all of them are equally capable of helping you go circular. You can use one of the five approaches, use two, you can even use all of them at once if that makes sense for your situation. The Circularity Deck provides a gateway to circular action that allows for mixing and matching.

The next few sections of the course will go over each of these five approaches, how they work and when they make sense. They are supported by various case studies, to give examples of how they operate in practice.
