Accenture announces winners of The Circulars

Accenture announces winners of The Circulars
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The World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders, in collaboration with Dublin-based Accenture, have awarded The Circulars at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan 23-26. The awards recognize individuals and organizations that have made notable contributions to the circular economy.

The fourth annual Circulars awards ceremony showcased advances from the private and public sectors as well as civil society that drive innovation and growth while reducing dependence on scarce natural resources.

“As advancements in the circular economy continue to disrupt old-school ideologies, The Circulars lead the way in identifying those transformational businesses and individuals who through digital connectivity, industrial design and progressive concepts have contributed in a significant and positive way to the environment and to economic growth,” says Antonia Gawal, head of Circular Economy Initiative, World Economic Forum. “The Circulars remain an important initiative of the World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders to celebrate such trailblazing innovation and impact.”

The seven Circulars were awarded as follows:

The Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership: Frans van Houten, CEO, Philips, for leading the transformation of Philips into a circular company by shifting its business model, moving from selling equipment alone to providing solutions to customers, and sharing risk for results through long-term partnerships. Van Houten also is co-chair of the World Economic Forum Platform to Accelerate the Circular Economy and he advocates the circular business and industry opportunity, and challenges organizations to operationalize these principles to deliver tangible impact.

The Accenture Strategy Award for Circular Economy Multinational: Ikea, for working with a circular model in all aspects of the company’s operations. From developing products and their supply chain, sourcing and mapping material in its business, implementing circular design principles and adapting their model to meet its customers’ demands.

The Young Global Leaders Award for Circular Economy SME (Small to Medium Size Enterprise): Apto Solutions, for providing a wide range of services to help companies close the loop on electronic waste, including life cycle asset management, responsible information technology recycling, facility and data center consolidations, cloud migrations, repair and refurbishing, total device management, as well as logistics, technology decommissioning and project management services.

The Award for Circular Economy Public Sector: Sitra, for playing a key role in accelerating circular economy, and leading the building of the groundbreaking Circular Economy Road Map for Finland 2016-2025, which incorporated circular economy education across 1,500 elementary schools and 50 high schools. Sitra also created the concept for and hosted the first World Circular Economy Forum in 2017, co-organized together with partners, including the Nordic Council of Ministers, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, European Commission, UN Environment and other important partners.

The CNBC Award for Circular Economy Investor: ABN AMRO Bank N.V., for being at the forefront of circular finance, and using their circular experts and relationship managers to work together in agile teams to understand and enable financing of new business models emerging from the principles of the circular economy.

The Ecolab Award for Circular Economy Digital Disruptor: AMP Robotics, for successfully developing a new kind of sorting technology for recycling facilities: Cortex robot. The Cortex can automate the separation of waste with practically no retrofit or change to existing operations. Cortex robots are powered by Neuron, the artificial intelligence that perceives material in the commingled conditions found in facilities today.

The Dell Circular Economy People’s Choice Award: Banyan Nation, India’s first vertically integrated recycling company, using data intelligence to integrate a largely informal supply chain to maximize plastics recovery and reuse. To date, Banyan has recycled more than 7 million pounds of plastics and integrated more than 2,000 informal sector waste workers in its value chain.

“Across the globe we continue to face the need to create growth, jobs and a thriving global economy within the boundaries of sustainable development,” says Peter Lacy, senior managing director, Accenture Strategy. “This is why The Circulars are more timely than ever with an aim of identifying the organizations and individuals leading this movement through innovation, growth and competitiveness. Accenture is pleased to play a key role in identifying these organizations and individuals by recognizing those who are using disruptive technologies and business models to address some of the most pressing challenges our world is facing and at the same time turning them into real opportunity.”

The Circulars attracted 296 entries from 45 countries in 2018. The judging panel was drawn from the Young Global Leader community of the World Economic Forum and leading experts across business and civil society. In addition to Accenture Strategy, The Circulars are sponsored by Dell and Ecolab, with CNBC and Fortune Magazine engaged as media partners.

In a separate press release, Closed Loop Partners, New York, announced that it was honored as First Runner Up in the Circular Economy Investor category at The Circular’s Award ceremony. The investment firm also was honored as First Runner up in 2016.

Two of Closed Loop Partner’s portfolio companies, Evrnu and AMP Robotics also were finalists. AMP Robotics won the Circular Economy Tech Disruptor Category.

Rob Kaplan, managing partner at Closed Loop Partners, says, “This award is a testament to the commitment of our corporate investors in Closed Loop Fund who took a bet on this new model three years ago, our investors in Closed Loop Ventures, and our portfolio companies who are proving tremendous impact and scale opportunity.” 

Closed Loop Partners is an investment firm that manages the Closed Loop Fund, a project finance fund that invests in scaling recycling infrastructure and sustainable manufacturing technologies; Closed Loop Ventures, a global equity fund that invests in early stage consumer goods, advanced recycling technologies and services supporting the circular economy; and Closed Loop Foundation, a nonprofit that does research and development of technologies and business models both focused on building the circular economy.

Since inception, Closed Loop Partners says it has deployed more than $35 million across 30 investments, diverting more than 250,000 tons of waste from landfill, reducing more than 600,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, creating $4.3 million in economic benefit for municipalities and affecting more than 1.5 million people

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations.

Established in 2004 by Professor Klaus Schwab, The Forum of Young Global Leaders is a multistakeholder community of young leaders who dedicate a part of their time to jointly address global challenges and who are committed to devote part of their knowledge and energy to collectively work toward a better future.

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Source: Recycling Today
Accenture announces winners of The Circulars
<![CDATA[The World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders, in collaboration with Dublin-based Accenture, have awarded The Circulars at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan 23-26. The awards recognize individuals and organizations that have made notable contributions to the circular economy. The fourth annual Circulars awards ceremony showcased advances from the private and public sectors as well as civil society that drive innovation and growth while reducing dependence on scarce natural resources. “As advancements in the circular economy continue to disrupt old-school ideologies, The Circulars lead the way in identifying those transformational businesses and individuals who through digital connectivity, industrial design and progressive concepts have contributed in a significant and positive way to the environment and to economic growth,” says Antonia Gawal, head of Circular Economy Initiative, World Economic Forum. “The Circulars remain an important initiative of the World Economic Forum and the Forum of Young Global Leaders to celebrate such trailblazing innovation and impact.” The seven Circulars were awarded as follows: The Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership: Frans van Houten, CEO, Philips, for leading the transformation of Philips into a circular company by shifting its business model, moving from selling…