Trade can facilitate access at lowest cost to critically important technological solutions for a circular economy, from waste sorting machines and devices that break down hard-to-recycle materials to the critical inputs needed to produce biodegradable plastics.

Trade can give circular businesses improved access to a larger supply of recovered goods, components and materials for recirculation, along with access to a larger consumer base, thus allowing them to decrease costs through vital economies of scale while strengthening the incentive to invest in eco-design and innovation, reverse logistics and other building blocks of circular business models.

Trade can help ensure that circular economy activities such as reuse, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling happen in the best possible locations in terms of cost, quality, skills and other location-specific advantages.