USA – Circular is launching a full-service digital platform that introduces a way to buy and sell environmentally sustainable commodities at scale, starting with a focus on recycled plastics.
The platform helps essential industries evolve to a more sustainable future by offering efficient online trading, accessible data and transparent economics, according to the company.
Circular’s digital infrastructure tools are designed to simplify supply chain logistics by doing all the sourcing, vetting, matching, contracting, shipping and billing for its customers.
Buyers and sellers can trade with confidence backed by a full guarantee and a dedicated concierge to facilitate the entire process.
“Circular’s focus is on the big economic and environmental picture behind helping brands and major manufacturers access the materials they need to meet sustainability goals,” said Ian Arthurs, founder and CEO of Circular.
“There is more than enough [recyclable] material out there to meet demand, but the industry has lacked the infrastructure and economic transparency to support greater recovery and circularity.”
The firm noted that it selected recycled plastics to start because of the scale of opportunity and challenge the industry faces.
According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: National Overview, over 380 million tons of virgin plastic are produced each year and global recycling rates remain under 9%, dropping to under 5% recently in the US.
This results in oceans of waste, microplastics in the bloodstream, and roughly 2 gigatons per year of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere.
“The plastics industry is essential to the global economy and clearly needs to evolve sustainably as fast as possible,” said Madigan-Curtis, Partner, Eclipse Ventures and Board Member of Circular.
“The digital tools required to help this sustainable evolution already exist in other industries; it’s inevitable they will apply to the plastic industry; our aim is to expedite the process.”
Circular’s leadership team is uniquely positioned to deliver on their objectives, bringing decades of technology platform experience from the likes of Google, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Bloomberg, Snap and Medium.
Rounding out the team, Circular.co secured as its lead investor Eclipse Ventures, a venture capital firm that says it helps entrepreneurs build exceptional companies that make physical industries more efficient, resilient, and profitable.
For the past year, Circular and Eclipse have been conducting research and development and testing the digital platform among buyers and sellers for the past year.
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