Standards work

The circular economy, as a standard

I serve as an expert in ISO/TC 323, the technical committee for the circular economy. That work sits upstream of every green business plan: it decides what counts as circular, how it is measured, and what a claim has to survive.

For clients the value is not the document. It is knowing, early, which measurements will hold, which business models the standard rewards, and where a well-intentioned strategy will fail an audit two years from now.

Where it applies

Model design

Choosing between reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling as the commercial core — not as a pledge, but as the thing the revenue depends on.

Measurement

Circularity indicators a board can read and an auditor will accept, with the boundary questions settled before the data collection starts.

Value chains

Circularity is almost never inside one company. The work is agreements, incentives and shared data across partners who compete elsewhere.

Claims

What you may say publicly, on what evidence. The cost of an unsupportable claim is now measured in regulatory and investor terms.

How I work with it

Standards work is a public contribution, not a service I sell. What I sell is the judgement it produces — brought into mentoring, board sessions and training rather than delivered as certification.

I do not audit, certify, or represent any standards body commercially. Where a client needs certification, I say who to call.

Format	Typical use
Board briefing	Half a day, standards landscape and exposure
Strategy review	Two sessions against the model and the metrics
Mentoring thread	Standing item inside an ongoing engagement
Team training	Cohort programme, see Training

The standards stack

The EU pushes ISO and CEN standards to accelerate the Green Deal; several million companies already work to them, increasingly as a condition of supplying large customers.

Standard	What it governs
ISO IWA 48:2024	Framework for implementing environmental, social and governance principles
ISO 9001:2026	Quality management systems — the must-know standard beneath the rest
ISO 14001:2025	Environmental management systems — the environmental impact core
ISO 45001:2018	Occupational health and safety — the S in ESG
ISO/PAS 53002:2024	Guidelines for contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
ISO 59004:2024	Circular economy — vocabulary, principles and guidance for implementation
ISO 59010:2024	Circular economy — transition of business models and value networks
ISO/AWI 59011	Circular economy — organizing a value network towards circularity

Companies running integrated ISO management systems also have the shortest path to IFRS integrated reporting — which is increasingly what investors ask for first.