The Circular Economy: Year in Review

In this episode, Stephanie McLarty reflects on the major themes of the circular economy in 2025, highlighting the challenges and breakthroughs in e-waste management, circular value creation, the Right to Repair movement, collaboration, digital product passports, compliance with new regulations, and the need for a fundamental rethinking of business practices to embrace circular principles. 

Takeaways 

• 2025 has seen significant shifts in the circular economy. 
• Circular value creation maximizes resource value throughout a product's life cycle. 
• Collaboration is essential for circular transformation. 
• Collaboration is essential for circular transformation. 

 
Thanks for tuning in to The Circular Future. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on our Podcasts, or wherever you listen. 
 
Interested in joining us as a guest? Reach out to Sanjay Trivedi at strivedi@quantumlifecycle.com 
 

Thanks for tuning in to The Circular Future. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

Interested in joining us as a guest? Reach out to Sanjay Trivedi at strivedi@quantumlifecycle.com.

Listen to more episodes at https://quantumlifecycle.com/podcast, and stay connected with us on LinkedIn.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage For 2025
• 1:36 Sponsor Message: Secure IT Disposition
• 2:06 E‑Waste Scale And Missed Value
• 4:48 Design Choices And Right To Repair
• 7:19 Collaboration As Circular Currency
• 9:04 Digital Product Passports And Data
• 10:35 AI’s Promise And Power Use
• 11:20 New Basel Rules And Compliance
• 13:02 Strategy For 2026 And Beyond
• 14:02 Closing Thanks And Contact

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

As we reflect on 2025, what have been the major themes for the circular economy? Here's a hint. It's been a pivotal year. Welcome to the Circular Future, showcasing stories of circularity that reshaped how businesses operate and how you can do it in your organization too. I'm your host, Stephanie McClarty, head of sustainability at Quantum Lifecycle Partners, your trusted partner in electronics circularity. I always appreciate the end of the year where we reflect on what's happened, what we've accomplished, and also how things have shifted on a broader level, especially with the circular economy. 2025 has been quite a year, hasn't it? Tariffs and New World Ord, we're actually seeing breakthroughs that are fundamentally changing how we think about waste, value creation, and also economic strategy. But we're also facing some harsh realities that really demand action now. So let's unpack five themes of what's really happening in the circular economy. The numbers I'm about to share should be on every business manager's radar. We'll get started after this short message. Picture this: your company just landed a major contract and needs to scale up fast. But what about all that sensitive data on your old equipment? That's exactly where Quantum Lifecycle shines, handling everything from secure data destruction to responsible recycling. Turn what could be a compliance nightmare into a seamless transition. Go to QuantumLifecycle.com for more information. Welcome back. Let's start with the elephant in the room. Or should I say the 62 million metric tons of electronic waste in the room? That's right. We generate a record 62 million metric tons of e-waste globally each year. To put that in perspective, that's an 82% increase since just 2010. I mean, think about how much smarter things are now, with batteries embedded and connected to Wi-Fi, and really it's in every facet of life. We see all sorts of tech through our recycling process at Quantum. Now, here's where it gets really interesting from a business standpoint. We're only capturing just over 22% of that waste for proper recycling and recovery. We're losing billions worth of valuable materials every single year. We're talking about industrial metals like copper and aluminum, precious metals like gold and silver, and yes, those incredibly strategic rare earth elements that everyone is scrambling to secure. The recycling industry is playing a major part in the solution to this. We talk about our contribution to critical minerals in Quantum's latest impact report. Here's the challenge. A lot of old devices are sitting in drawers and closets and storerooms, a phenomenon called electronic hibernation that we talk about in episode 55. But here's the breakthrough thinking that's emerging in 2025. This isn't just about recycling better. The experts are calling it circular value creation, a systemic approach that maximizes resource value through a product's entire life cycle. It's basically an economic strategy that happens to look like an environmental one. And the market is responding. Global e-waste management sector is projected to hit$81 billion this year, which is a 17% increase from just three years ago. The IT asset disposition sector, that's the reuse and remarketing space, is on pace to reach$36 billion by 2034. Now let's talk about where the real transformation is happening. At the design stage, we are finally seeing a coordinated pushback against planned obsolescence. Product design matters a lot. A lot of choices early on impact whether a device can be reused. If components are secured with strong adhesives or batteries glued in place, or software updates deliberately slow down older devices, this all can force a device into premature replacement. Yet the environmental savings of extending a device are absolutely profound. If a laptop can be reused and refurbished, it saves approximately 54 kilograms of embodied carbon, which is about a 50% reduction in total environmental impact. Momentum has been building for the right to repair movement, and 2025 has been a year that that movement has gained some serious legislative teeth. Right to repair is the push to have owners of devices be able to repair their own devices or bring it to any technician because basically parts and resources for repair are readily accessible. One in five Americans now lives in a state with some form of right to repair protection, with California and Oregon passing new legislation this past year. In fact, Oregon just passed the most sophisticated anti-parts pairing legislation that we've ever seen. What is that? Well, parts pairing is when manufacturers use software to digitally marry specific components to specific devices. Even if you replace a battery with a genuine manufacturer part, if it wasn't authenticated by their central server, the software triggers error messages or disables functions. Oregon's new law is targeting that very thing, that technical hurdle. And beyond the US, there is progress in Canada, in the European Union, and more. We covered the right to repair movement in episode 30 with iFix It and 41 with phone manufacturer HMD. Alright, the next theme is the collaboration imperative. The experts at the Canadian Circular Economy Summit this year made it crystal clear. Collaboration is the absolute currency of circular transformation. You cannot have one company throwing away a complex waste stream if another company, perhaps it's a startup, could use it as a primary input. We're seeing this play out in fascinating ways. Andrew Telfer of Circular Innovation Council covers this in episode 54, which is stories of circular business transformation. Another interesting example is emissions reduction, Alberta. They've injected$105 million into 35 circular economy projects, with total project value nearing a half a billion dollars. They're using revenue taxed from large industrial emitters to fund circular technologies in other sectors. But it's not just happening locally. The international cooperation through the Eureka Network, that's 47 countries focused on market-driven RD, is actively prioritizing circular value creation. The message is clear. Incremental improvements to the old linear take, make, dispose model are insufficient. If you want true circular value creation, you have to fundamentally rethink the entire system. The best way to do this is to collaborate together. Now let's talk about something that's absolutely critical to all efforts, but often overlooked. It's the digital spine that makes circularity work. We need comprehensive tracking of materials throughout their extended lives, and that's where digital product passports really come in. These are complex digitized records being mandated in places like the EU and Japan. They track material properties, circularity information, chain of custody for electronics, and more. When you buy a device, the digital passport tells you where components came from, how much recycled content is in it, how to repair it, and follows it all the way to the recycling center at its end of life. I know we're really encouraged at Quantum about the possibilities of this to enable further reuse and recycling. But here's the challenge around data. We need to be really smart around implementation. The environmental footprint of data transmission itself can be massive. You have to find that sweet spot that balances systems performance with energy efficiency. If the digital spine uses too much energy, it actually counteracts the environmental benefits that it's trying to enable. This is where AI, artificial intelligence, could play a transformative role. And wow, has 25 been the year we've seen AI truly transform both our business and personal lives. But it's only if AI is powered sustainably. AI can optimize those incredibly complex circular processes, but the energy powering it has to be clean. We cover the hidden environmental impact of AI in episode 47. All right, lastly, compliance. Compliance always has to be a key consideration. And here's something that every business leader needs to understand now. January 1st, 2025 marked a fundamental shift in global e-waste regulations. The e-waste amendments to the Basel Convention changed the rules for international e-waste trade in a big way. This game changer is mandatory prior informed consent documentation for all crosswater all sorry, excuse me. The game changer is mandatory prior informed consent documentation for all cross-border movements of e-waste, so both hazardous and non-hazardous. Before 2025, this was only required for explicitly hazardous waste. The enforcement has been immediate and serious. Between January and May of 2025, 122 containers of unapproved e-scrapped were intercepted in Malaysia alone. And the consequences of noncompliance are severe: enormous penalties, operational delays, inventory bottlenecks, and significant reputational damage. But here's the thing: this level of rigor is actually good for legitimate circular businesses. It closes the massive loophole that allowed waste to end up in developing nations without proper processing infrastructure. It guarantees accountability across borders. If you want to know more about the Basel changes, check out episodes 44 and 45. Alright, now let's look ahead. Here's what all business leaders need to be considering as we head into the new year. The question isn't whether to engage with circular principles. It's how quickly you can build the partnerships and compliance capabilities and design thinking needed to turn this challenge into competitive advantage. It's about how to embrace a massive new shift in thinking, not just tuning up the old system, but a fundamental rethinking across every sector to make it circular. We also need to do this as two major forces reshape our organizations and our soci. We also need to do this as two major forces reshape our organizations and society at large: climate change and AI. So, what are organizations doing to embrace the circular economy and be competitive into the 2030s and beyond? Well, we're covering that very thing here on the circular future: the stories of what businesses have done to embrace and advance circularity. We've already told many stories: Maple's Labels in episode 50, Sustainable Transport Pilot that leverages AI in 52, Legend Bob Willard's playbook for sustainable procurement in episode 51, and we'll have lots more stories of how organizations have achieved circular successes in 2026. And you know what? I can't wait. Thank you for being part of this journey and all the best in the year ahead. And remember, if you are looking for a leader in electronics lifecycle management, we'd love to chat. Head on over to QuantumLifecycle.com and contact us. This is a Quantum Lifecycle Podcast, and the producer is Sanjay Trevetti. Thank you for being a circular future champion in your company and beyond.