Visa and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation: Advancing Recommerce in the Circular Economy

A healthy circular economy is, by design, distributed, diverse and inclusive. Reuse, repair, remanufacturing, reverse logistics and resale are quintessential to such a system, and cumulatively these ‘recommerce’ activities will become more common, profitable, and accessible as nations and companies recognize the long-term value of decoupling economic growth from primary resource extraction.

At the same time, as the world’s economy enters a period of de-globalization, bringing the principles of a circular economy to life on local and regional levels will take on heightened importance and present new opportunities for innovative place-based models of economic, social, and biological prosperity. All actors in the economy will play a role in redefining the systems that support communities at these scales, with businesses often leading the way.

As Visa and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation begin our Strategic Partnership against this backdrop, we will work together to understand how global payments infrastructure will evolve to support these new systems. We will also explore the role that individuals can play in accelerating the transition to a circular economy, and how those roles will be empowered by secure and frictionless payments networks.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and in the face of unprecedented global challenges and technological change, profound shifts in workforce and broader societal dynamics are occurring. Individuals are increasingly being recognized in economic terms not only as producers of goods and consumers of products, but also users of services and sources of the data that underpins much of the developed economies.

Where they are privileged to be able to do so, in each of these roles individuals are exercising their power to make values-based choices. As the world’s pre-eminent payments network, Visa is uniquely positioned to develop new products and services that support choices that are aligned to sustainable living.