Executive Summary
What is the Global Circularity Protocol for Business:
The Global Circularity Protocol for Business (GCP) accelerates the transition to a circular economy by providing a global framework for measuring, managing and communicating an organization’s circular performance and its impacts. The GCP guides organizations in their transition to a circular economy with a step-by-step journey that places at its core the measurement of material flows that enter, move through and exit an organization’s operational boundaries.
By enabling circularity to be embedded at the heart of business strategy, the GCP helps organizations communicate decision-useful information that fosters trust, enhances comparability, and enables investors to confidently direct capital toward scaling circular initiatives.
Designed to serve organizations of all sizes, sectors and geographies, the GCP offers a comprehensive approach to integrating circularity into strategy, operations and performance management. The GCP’s standardized scopes for material flows and indicators will also enable the comparability of assessment results.
Transformative Impact Potential
The GCP's transformative potential is quantified through its impact analysis:
Accelerating Maturity
Adoption could double the pace at which businesses reach advanced circularity maturity levels
Material Savings
The GCP could yield cumulative global material reductions of 100–120 billion tonnes by 2050.
Climate Impact
Emissions reductions of 6–7% per year between 2026 and 2050, translating to 67–76 gigatons CO₂e avoided.
Nature Impact
Expected 11–12% annual reductions in PM₂.₅ pollution between 2026 and 2050.
By embedding the GCP within corporate strategy and disclosure, companies can improve performance, shape markets, influence regulation, and contribute to a regenerative, future-fit economy.
Organisations
Experts
Governance and multistakeholder process
The GCP is anchored in a robust, multistakeholder governance structure to ensure scientific rigor, credibility and independence. Its development has involved over 80 organizations and more than 150 experts, coordinated by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in strategic partnership with UNEP-hosted One Planet Network (OPN).
Three advisory committees (business, policy and scientific) provided strategic guidance and review, ensuring that this first version of the protocol is practical, robust and globally relevant. More information on the development of the GCP is available at name of webpage.
GCP 5 stage journey
The GCP proposes a step-by-step operational methodology applicable at different scales, from a single product to an organization’s global systems.
It consists of a five-stage user journey, with flexible guidance to accommodate all contexts and capabilities. Its standardized scopes and indicators ensure the credibility and comparability of what organizations measure and report. Guidance ranges from defining use cases and boundaries, to selecting indicators, analyzing results and preparing external disclosures.
Figure 1:Overview of the GCP user journey
Evolving to meet the future
This first version of the GCP marks the beginning of a shared journey toward greater circularity. It introduces the essential concepts, methodologies, and indicators that enable organizations to measure, understand, and advance their circularity performance with clarity and confidence.
The GCP is not intended as a final or all-encompassing framework, but as a credible foundation that will evolve through continual improvement. As adoption grows, future iterations will expand its scope and depth, ensuring it remains relevant, transparent, and practical. This version sets clear expectations for what the GCP represents today and what it aspires to become.
We invite businesses to engage with this first iteration by:
Applying the core methodologies to baseline and improve circularity performance
Collaborating with stakeholders to strengthen comparability and interoperability across sectors and geographies