After the GHG Protocol.
The Global Circularity Protocol, led by WBCSD. Just as the GHG Protocol turned carbon into the language of business, GCP is set to make circularity a language the world shares. What changes when it does?
There is no common yardstick for measuring the circular economy. No shared way for companies to compare how much of their resource flow they actually keep in circulation. It simply does not yet exist anywhere in the world.
To fill that gap, WBCSD has begun to move. Just as the GHG Protocol turned carbon into a language the world shares, this is an attempt to do the same for circularity: the Global Circularity Protocol. This piece reads what it means.
A global standard for circularity is being born.
WBCSD (the World Business Council for Sustainable Development) is running a project together with many of the world's leading companies: the Global Circularity Protocol, or GCP. It is a common, global framework for measuring the circular economy.
The roster of participants tells you how far its reach extends. Apple, Schneider Electric, IBM, Bayer, Mars, SAP, Pfizer. Across industries, across geographies. The technical backbone of the framework is provided by KPMG and academic researchers.
The aim is clear: to create a global metric for circularity. Just as climate has the GHG Protocol, the circular economy needs a common yardstick of its own. That is where GCP starts.
What can't be measured can't be reduced.
There is no shortage of ESG disclosure frameworks today. GRI, SASB, TCFD, SBTi, CDP, ISSB, CSRD, SSBJ. Each speaks about "circularity" in its own language.
If Company A announces a "circularity rate of 80%," it cannot be compared with Company B's "circularity rate of 85%." The boundaries of measurement, the formulas, and the items in scope all differ. For investors, the data doesn't line up. For regulators, there is no basis on which to set a standard. For companies, there is no way to benchmark against peers.
The quarter-century the GHG Protocol walked.
-
1998
WRI and WBCSD jointly launch the GHG Protocol. The work of building a common global standard for carbon accounting begins.
-
2001
The Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard is published. The standard formula for the Fortune 500 is set.
-
2011
Scope 3 guidance is added. A methodology for measuring carbon emissions across the entire supply chain emerges.
-
2015
It becomes a premise of global climate policy under the Paris Agreement, referenced as the basis for national NDCs, SBTi, and CDP.
This is the map of the roughly quarter-century the GHG Protocol walked. It built the standard in the first three years, widened the scope of measurement over ten, and became the language of national policy in under twenty. GCP is likely to follow the same trajectory: standardization to premise for disclosure regimes to criterion for investors to language of national policy. Right now, we stand at the very start of that path.
WBCSD sets the standard. But the data to meet it exists only on the ground.
Why is this a RECOTECH story?
WBCSD builds the GCP framework. But the data to fill that framework does not exist inside WBCSD. It exists only on the ground, inside companies.
What item was discharged? Where did it come from? How much did it weigh? What was it recycled into? As a recycled material, whose hands did it reach? Almost no company holds this at the granularity of item × site × time. What most organizations collect on the ground stops at the aggregate of what they contracted out for treatment: how many tonnes were handed over.
That is exactly what RECOTECH has been working on with pool. Building, ahead of time, a data foundation for improving on-the-ground operations that, as a byproduct, is ready to be used for international-standard disclosure. Digitized manifests, tenant allocation, cost optimization: these are practical benefits we deliver to the field today. That same data becomes the foundation for responding to GCP a few years from now.
The day GCP begins to operate as a common language — within a few years at the earliest, within this decade at the latest — companies holding their data in pool can disclose from that day. With zero preparation time, they can join the world's language. Companies that are not recording by item today, by contrast, will spend years from that day just getting on-the-ground data collection off the ground.
The day the language aligns.
Just as the GHG Protocol turned carbon into a language the world shares, GCP will make circularity one too. Over the next few years, "circularity" will shift from a qualitative aspiration into a quantitative management metric. Compared, evaluated, and factored into investment decisions.
WBCSD sets the standard. But whether a company can meet it depends on data from the ground. Waiting for the standard before you move means you won't make it in time. On the day the standard arrives, is your data already in order? That is where the view splits between companies.