How cleaning your closets can change your company’s culture

For the past few weeks, I’ve been transitioning our children’s playroom to a room for teens. Our family challenge was to try and do it without buying anything new and coming out economically even, spending no more than we were able to generate by selling things in it. The result is that I’ve been a very active user of some tools of the circular economy: namely Freecycle.org, Goodwill, Craigslist and for the first time, Facebook Marketplace.

If you aren’t familiar with the termbetway必威体育手机版, it’s an economic system that designs out waste and pollution at the start, keeps materials and products in use and regenerates natural resources. It stands in stark contrast to the traditional industrial model of "take, make, dispose." Anytime you avoid disposing something that could be re-used or repaired, you are participating in one component of the circular economy.

I’ve become a big fan of Facebook Marketplace because it’s so much easier and often more fun to connect and communicate with the buyer before — and after. Our much-loved Melissa and Doug grocery store is delighting kindergarteners at a charter school. A broken storage cabinet went to a Brazilian carpenter, who proudly sent a photo of the cabinet totally refurbished and beautiful.

As a leader, you will want your team to understand the key concept of circularity.

Seeing what we no longer need really benefit someone else feels good, which provides motivation to find more to pass on. Buying previously owned versus new feels both economically and environmentally just smarter and better.

As a leader, you will want your team to understand the key concept of circularity. Companies that employ circular-thinking will be more innovative, more efficient and more resilient in the future.

But how do you create a culture of circularity? In our work atWeSpire, we know that active participation is one of the best ways to understand a new concept. So here are three ideas to bring the "reuse and repair" part of circularity to life.

• Set up a simple way for employees to swap work and personal items. We heard a powerful story from a customer who fled an abusive relationship and was able to furnish her entire apartment from an employee swap room.
• Conduct a Dumpster Dive to see what items in your waste stream could be reused, repaired or recycled. Burt’s Bees saved $25,000 a year after doing one suchevent.
• If you sell or produce physical products, conduct in-home customer observation sessions to figure out better ways to reuse, repair, compost or recycle your packaging and product. Consider usingYerdleto set up a re-commerce initiative. Check out the newLoop circular delivery initiative, an in-home refill service for some of people’s favorite brands and products including shampoo, orange juice and ice cream.

These activities are simple but powerful ways to start to think in a circular way, which if you don’t, your customer may begin to force. At last count, 41,000 people have signed apetitionasking Colgate to remove boxes from toothpaste.

But my primary suggestion is to participate yourself. Find something that you might have sitting in a closet that someone else could use. Instead of buying new, take a quick look on FB Marketplace to see if what you need is available refurbished or previously owned. You may find that thinking in a circular way makes you healthier, wealthier and wiser.

If nothing else, your closets will be just a little cleaner.