The circular economy is rapidly gaining regulatory and strategic importance – from ESRS E5 and the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) to the Digital Product Passport (DPP). Organisations face the challenge of not only embedding circularity conceptually, but measuring it reliably: which indicators demonstrate real progress in material use, recycled content, reuse and waste reduction?
Many companies already have their own metrics systems in place – yet these sit in isolation from their climate strategy and are inconsistent with external standards and frameworks. This makes governance, target tracking and reporting equally difficult. Without a clear, harmonised set of indicators, organisations risk duplicating data collection efforts, lacking transparency with regulatory authorities, and missing the opportunity to leverage circularity and decarbonisation as a shared driver. Those who establish a robust measurement foundation early on gain both governance capability and regulatory certainty.
We make circular potentials measurable and integrate them into existing systems such as your climate or sustainability strategy – creating particular value for Scope 3. At the same time, we define a tailored set of indicators and harmonise the relevant data points with regulatory requirements, to unlock synergies, reduce effort and improve decision quality.
Together with you, we define meaningful circular economy KPIs and develop tailored scorecards for each action area. These support the evaluation of measures and enable governance of decarbonisation, resource efficiency and alternative materials. We link the indicators to greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting in line with the GHG Protocol. Based on your current data maturity, we also design a hybrid Scope 3 calculation approach that increases the accuracy of emissions accounting across your value chain.
Together, we define relevant sustainability metrics and develop a data map of existing information and data points. This allows us to determine which data points are relevant and how they can serve different frameworks – the Global Circularity Protocol, ISO 59020, ESRS E5 (CSRD), PPWR, ESPR and the Digital Product Passport (DPP). From this, we derive a framework for defining, measuring and monitoring the circular economy that can simultaneously be used for reporting purposes. This ensures that indicators are not collected separately multiple times at different levels, but defined consistently and made accessible to all departments for their respective needs.
"Sustainability compliance remains a cost driver as long as it is treated as pure reporting. Those who integrate it into existing processes and systems instead turn it into a real value lever – for synergies, more efficient decisions and better products."
Timo Ernst
Senior Manager | Sustainable AG Unternehmensberatung
Organisations that consistently measure circular economy KPIs and link them to GHG accounting gain a unified basis for Scope 3 emissions, climate targets and reporting – without duplicating data collection.
Early harmonisation of indicators – aligned with GCP, ISO 59020, ESRS E5, PPWR, ESPR and DPP – creates planning certainty and lays the foundation for new, circular business models.
An integrated circular accounting framework makes resource efficiency and circularity measurable, comparable and durably manageable – as a strategic lever across the entire value chain.
