CAPITAL AND ATTENTION ARE BLOCKING PROGRESS
Asked to name the single biggest bottleneck to circularity at their organization, 42% of respondents named an economic one: imperative to achieve cost parity, creating or getting buy-in for a business case, establishing a credible ROI, aligning available budget in a competitive environment, or access to capital. The next-largest theme, at 26%, was internal: leadership buy-in, competing priorities, and bandwidth.
Technical or material capability was named by one respondent in fifty, which suggests that an innovation and tech pipeline is not perceived as the key limiter.
IF YOU'RE AT A STARTUP
Better alignment with economic realities, not your tech differentiators, may be advisable. Structural and budgetary issues were the main blockers cited by respondents. Setting potential outcomes against easy-to-understand relative metrics like cost competitive with disposal, virgin material or blends, common alternatives, or even a 'do nothing' case should help you cut through the noise.
IF YOU'RE LEADING A CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY TEAM
You are not alone in getting circularity-focused initiatives to scale. About 42% of respondents, at organizations of varying sizes and 'sustainability maturity', cited similar bottlenecks. Those suggesting accelerated progress tended to highlight the successful navigation of basic economic questions, while those focusing more on only environmental outcomes tended to lag.
IF YOU'RE AN IMPACT INVESTOR
Adoption of new tech by corporate buyers is limited by flat budgets, missing business cases, and a lack of a clear pathway to evaluate a startup's tech against real business problems. Portfolio company revenue expectations must be grounded to build in corporate finance function timelines, as the bottlenecks are systemic and are not expected to change overnight. Startup diligence processes should explicitly consider the corporate buyer's budget line and adoption readiness, including and beyond piloting.
BUDGETS AREN'T ADDRESSING KEY PAIN POINTS
Respondents were asked to choose up to three areas where they expect to spend budget in the coming months. Compliance and materials substitution took the top two slots.
Not one of the eight spending categories addresses the business case or internal alignment — the two things 42% and 26% of the same people had just named as their blockers. Material traceability, meanwhile, finishes second from last on budget while being the single most-requested missing capability in the group exercise.
IF YOU'RE AT A STARTUP
There is budget, and it has names. If your product can be bought out of an EPR compliance line or a materials substitution line, align your pitch materials to use those words. Selling into a line that does not exist means asking a sustainability lead to figure one out or create one, which will slow or prevent adoption of your solution.
IF YOU'RE A CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY LEADER
Your peers are funding compliance and material substitution while naming business case as the blocker preventing circular outcomes and progress. Consider examining whether this gap exists at your company, and if nothing is funded against your blocker(s), then spending is likely being allocated in a reactive way, which is an area of improvement to consider.
IF YOU'RE AN IMPACT INVESTOR
The group's feedback yielded interesting co-selections that may identify new areas/startups to focus on, or represent areas to double down on. Reverse logistics pairs with measurement in 8 responses; EPR pairs with measurement in 6; alternative materials pairs with design in 6. Those are the bundles buyers already think in, so startups addressing the full bundle (rather than leaving it to the customer to fill the gap) should be prioritized.
A THIRD OF RESPONDENTS REPORTED THEY HAVE NO STRUCTURED WAY TO EVALUATE NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Asked how they would connect to, vet and evaluate a new technology, 33 of 50 described at least something resembling a process.
One respondent stated it plainly: there is no standard process, because it varies too much across product lines. For a market that depends on corporate buyers adopting new technology, a third of them cannot describe how that would happen, which is a compelling finding that should be addressed.
IF YOU'RE AT A STARTUP
When a prospect goes quiet, the default assumption is that they said no. A third of respondents here could not describe how a 'yes' would even be constructed. Ask early and directly who signs, what evidence they need, and what the last new vendor went through — and treat a vague answer as a real finding about that account rather than a brush-off. Create useful go-to-market motions that are repeatable, executable, and can be flexible to idiosyncrasies that exist between corporate buyers.
IF YOU'RE A CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY LEADER
Writing down a one-page intake path for new tech: who screens, on what criteria, what a pilot has to demonstrate, etc. puts you ahead and shortens every vendor conversation you will have.
IF YOU'RE AN IMPACT INVESTOR
Sales-cycle assumptions in circularity decks are usually modelled on a buyer with a procurement function. Much of this market does not have one for novel technology, particularly for sustainability-related applications. When a portfolio company reports a long pilot-to-contract lag, the constraint may be that no path from pilot to contract exists at that customer (yet).
IF A PROCESS EXISTS, IT'S AD HOC AND INCLUDES A COMPANY INTRODUCTION AND A LIMITED PILOT
Among the 33 who described something substantive, the shape is consistent and it is not procurement. Technology arrives through a personal or advisory connection, gets screened on cost before anything else, and has to survive a small pilot with defined success criteria before anyone discusses scale.
Formal RFI or RFP appeared in two responses out of fifty. Building a go-to-market motion around tender processes means competing for a door almost nobody in the room at Trellis Impact uses.
Almost nobody goes looking. Technology arrives through mutual colleagues, through the consultants, designers and architects already engaged on a project, or through partner conversations already underway. Two respondents described actively scanning — one uses product-discovery sites, another asks an AI tool to summarize a technology and its competitors to decide where to start.
■ WHAT THIS MEANS
The consultants in the room are a distribution channel, not an audience.
Cost is the first gate in roughly ten of the 33 responses, and was often the only gate named. Technology readiness, scalability, and whether an end market exists for the output follow. Several respondents screen on fit before merit: whether the solution suits the existing supply chain, the business model it would sit inside, and the geographies they operate in.
■ ADDITIONAL, INFORMAL GATE REVIEW ITEMS
Multiple respondents cited screening startup teams for both personality and company culture fit, which included things like how well the startup understands the company's industry and what drives their business, the extent the startup is transparent about what they know and what their tech can do now and into the future, and evidence of execution success.
Small, contained, and explicitly a test: a sandbox before a pilot run, a physical demo then one facility, a proof of concept scoped after an NDA and a candid conversation about fit. One respondent described the whole sequence as due diligence and economic analysis, then a small-scale pilot with success criteria, then reinvestment if it works.
■ A PERCEPTION AROUND ASYMMETRY
One respondent noted the importance of larger companies piloting solutions in ways that de-risk medium- and smaller-sized firms to adopt the technology. There were open questions about risk and burden shifting and the extent to which eventual beneficiaries of a technology can find ways to meaningfully participate earlier in piloting while shouldering an appropriate degree of financial and operational risk.
Thinly described, which is itself the finding. Where it appears it means due diligence widening across business units, or reinvestment triggered by pilot success. Two respondents mentioned having formal RFI and RFP processes.
■ AN EXAMPLE "DEALBREAKER"
Multiple respondents highlighted that a common stopper when engaging new technology providers is the complexity of the implemented solution, citing that heavy lifts needed to notify and align multiple internal teams are particularly challenging, especially in cases where the sustainability team has limited headcount. Put bluntly, if the solution is convoluted or otherwise overly complex, and cost information is not transparently provided early in the process, these conditions will severely limit the potential for the technology solution provider to win the business.
IF YOU'RE AT A STARTUP
Arrive through the consultants and designers already inside the account. Lead the second conversation with cost. Bring a pilot that is already scoped, already priced, and already has its success criteria written — and never open with an offer to build something bespoke, which reads to a stretched buyer as a project they have to manage rather than a product they can buy.
IF YOU'RE A CORPORATE CUSTAINABILITY LEADER
Your peers screen on cost, fit and the credibility of the team, then run a small pilot with written success criteria and reinvest on evidence. If your own process is less defined than that, this is a usable template — and the stage most of them under-specify is what happens after a pilot succeeds.
IF YOU'RE AN IMPACT INVESTOR
Two of the gates are non-technical and rarely diligenced: whether the team is credible and workable, and whether the offer is ready-made rather than bespoke. A company whose default motion is custom implementation is structurally slower here, regardless of how good the technology is.
COMPANY BUDGETS AND INVESTOR ATTENTION WEIGHS TOO HEAVILY ON AI, LIMITING THE DEVELOPMENT AND ADOPTION OF CIRCULARITY-SUPPORTING TECH
AI and data tooling is a top-four funded priority for this room, as evidenced by multiple respondents and one of the tables during the group exercise.
Challenges are both that budgets at companies are going toward AI-related matters, while AI firms are taking in the vast majority of venture funding in recent years. There's an important implication, in that a relatively narrow set of solutions that may help partly support successful circularity outcomes are getting an outsize amount of budget allocation and investment funding.
IF YOU'RE AT A STARTUP
If you are raising for materials or infrastructure, your competition for that dollar is probably not another circularity company. Being legible as an AI-adjacent data or optimization play, provided this is a credible claim, and reframing may help close capital gaps in small but meaningful ways.
IF YOU'RE A CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY LEADER
Most Sustainability teams reported not benefiting from shifts in budgets that funnel CapEx and OpEx to AI-related measures. Sustainability leaders should be crafting cases to align sustainability and circularity goals and initiatives that credibly highlight where AI can be used to help drive and measure outcomes. When identifying a startup that can help support circularity goals, leveraging the "AI Moment" we're still currently in (as of July/August 2026) can help build the case to pilot and adopt new solutions.
IF YOU'RE AN IMPACT INVESTOR
The sentiment on AI-related budgeting and funding is an important signal based on the spectrum of sustainability leaders who provided feedback. For these investors, this suggests more hands-on guidance and nurturing of a smaller-than-desired pool of investable companies may be needed to increase the odds that companies with circularity solutions unrelated to AI will succeed.
SIX OF NINE TABLES ASKED FOR THE SAME THING
As part of the Trellis Impact Session, attendees clustered into 9 different groups and spent time digging into a range of strategic and tactical prompts to create a set of shared perspectives on opportunities and bottlenecks around scaled circularity. Compellingly, the majority of groups converged on similar ideas, completely independently. Put plainly: better information, aligned standards, and "trust in the system" were all bright, flashing needs highlighted by most groups.
■ SHARED DATA & STANDARDS ·
- A centralized feedstock facility and database — an aggregator — so there is enough input volume to actually commercialize a process.
- A global repository, described as a yellow pages, of material availability, performance and data specifications that are decision-useful.
- An accessible database of industry standards for recycled raw materials, so a buyer can more quickly establish trust that comparable performance is within reach.
- Harmonized product compliance and transparency intelligence, aligned across product classes and suppliers.
- A clearer understanding of the fate of various materials at end-of-life, at useful (sub-state) levels of granularity.
- Standards as a coordinating device - taking a page from the tech industry, setting aligned standards can move an entire industry.
■ CAPITAL INSTRUMENTS THAT DON'T EXIST
- Developing circularity-related certification schemes that can fit with budgets of innovators - existing certification systems prevent early-stage innovators from getting key validation.
- Creating a bridge from "patient capital" to moonshot ideas, and the different metrics and stage gates that bridge would require.
- Infrastructure awareness and development specifically to address the "valley of death" for bio-based materials.
- Novel private partnerships to risk share on new waste-processing and related measurement technologies.
■ DEMAND & BEHAVIOR
- Radically lower friction on consumer returns — if it is hard, customers will not do it.
- A way for consumers to find certified sustainable products and services, hotels and restaurants included, not just products.
- Clean sorted waste streams, and the end-user convenience that produces them.
■ UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS RAISED BY RESPONDENTS
- Are we addressing carbon and long-term negative impacts while solving for circularity, or trading one problem for another?
- Are new technologies only emerging from the usual institutions (e.g., elite universities and big tech) rather than from under-resourced communities?
- Domestic end-market material often ends up somewhere else in the world. Is that solving the underlying problem or relocating it?
- Are there better ways of clarifying what's meant by "circularity", as the term lends itself to abuse to the point where it loses any meaning?
IF YOU'RE AT A STARTUP
This is a requirements list written by your buyers, unprompted. The aggregator, the repository and the harmonized claim are all described as missing, which means whoever builds one credibly has a market that already articulated the spec. Note also that certification cost is named as a structural barrier — if it is slowing you, it is slowing everyone, which is an argument to make jointly rather than alone.
IF YOU'RE A CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY LEADER
Six of nine tables want the same infrastructure, which means no single company has to fund it and no single company can. This is precompetitive work — a consortium, a standards body, a shared database — and this convergence is the evidence you would need to propose one internally.
IF YOU'RE AN IMPACT INVESTOR
Two fundable shapes sit in this list. The first is the aggregator or repository, where demand was articulated by buyers before any vendor pitched it. The second is the certification fund — a capital instrument rather than a company, and one that would unlock a cohort instead of a single asset.