Circular business development in practice

The project was part of the regional initiative for strengthening circular business models in West Sweden and aimed to support coaching actors in the innovation system to work with circular business development in practice. Through the project, innovation actors received coaching from experts from RISE so that they in turn could support SMEs in Västra Götaland to work proactively to strengthen their innovation work and competitiveness when it comes to circular design and new business models. Region Västra Götaland has seen a great need to strengthen the ability and expertise in the innovation system to contribute to the sustainable transition in the region. The coaching actors have a key role in supporting companies in their transition and need increased knowledge of circular business development as well as new coaching strategies and tools.

The project was part of a larger initiative to train a network of coaching actors in West Sweden on circular business development. RISE held a pilot training in 2021 together with Circular Hub at Science Park Borås, and Circular Hub also held an extended programme in 2023. Region Västra Götaland thereafter initiated the challenge "Circular design & new business" to encourage the coaching actors to apply their new knowledge of circular economy and circular innovation in their work as business coaches. Through this project, RISE supported the coaching actors who accepted the challenge and helped them to raise circular issues in their coaching conversations with companies. In the later part of the challenge, RISE also provided more case-specific expert support for the actors who identified company cases with great potential that required more in-depth coaching.

In addition to strengthening the coaching actors' ability to work with circular business development in practice, this project resulted in a number of good examples of how companies have worked successfully with circular design and business development. Insights from the project have been used to develop a toolkit to support even more innovation coaches to empower circular businesses.

The toolkit Circular Coaching  Essentials - Tools for empowering circular businesses includes:
• 10 nycklar för samtal om cirkulära möjligheter (in Swedish)
• Utmaningar vid cirkulär coaching (in Swedish)
• Tools for circular design and business model innovation
• Tools for circular business calculations
• Goda företagsexempel (in Swedish)