EU CERC · Knowledge Product · 2025
Concrete journeys where finance has unlocked the circular economy.
A small set of well-documented case studies that trace how financiers, from microfinance institutions to commercial banks, have stepped in to make circular business models bankable. Read them, listen to them, share them.
Welcome
Circular finance can feel abstract. This publication exists to make it concrete.
Inside, you will find a small, growing collection of real journeys, how specific institutions, from multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, commercial banks to public-research networks, philanthropies, and corporate-backed funds, actually financed the circular economy. Not theory: what pushed them to move, the strategy they chose, how they executed it, and what other financiers can take away.
A publication of the EU Circular Economy Resource Centre, direct, concrete and action-oriented by design. Take your time, or jump straight to one of the circular finance stories below.
Real, documented journeys
Each story follows one institution, from the moment circularity became a strategic lever to the lessons it leaves behind.
A shared narrative arc
Profile, the trigger, the strategy, the execution, and a direct call to action you can apply in your own institution.
Read it, hear it, share it
Long-form on the web, narrated in audio, and packaged as a print-ready booklet to pass on.
Start here · Key insights from the report
Fields of action for more circular economy financing
Five priority pillars, drawn from fieldwork with more than 20 financial organisations, each with 3 insights from the field and 2 things financiers can start doing right away.
The stories
Published case studies
A living publication, new stories added as journeys are documented.
Shaping a global playbook for circular finance
How the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, designed shared guidelines to help financiers spot, measure, and fund circular deals with confidence.
Accelerating market creation through practitioner-led standards
How Invest-NL anticipates future circularity standards by building practical, bottom-up frameworks to turn circular intent into a bankable market reality.
Reframing credit risk through circular transition
How Bancolombia turned climate volatility into a proactive corporate banking model.
Building the circular economy through aligned government priorities
How the African Development Bank channels government-led strategic priorities to build a continental ecosystem for circular market creation.
Transborder upstream innovation research
How the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) utilizes international public research networks to shift the innovation focus from basic recycling to systemic product design.
Corporate-driven supply chain funding
How Circulate Capital partners with the world's leading brands to transform their supply chains through circularity.
Unlocking circular capital through concessional bridging
How a flexible, concessional debt tool allowed a Proparco venture-capital team in Nairobi to de-risk and fund an early-stage circular business model in Kenya.
The spectrum of circular finance
How the European Investment Bank uses a diverse ecosystem of capital structures to accommodate the unique financing needs, project scales, and maturities of the circular transition.
A living collection
This collection is a starting point, not a complete market map.
More financiers are active in circularity, or plan to be, and new regulation and tools keep emerging. If you know a circular finance best practice we should feature, we would love to hear about it.