There are five main lock-ins companies need to face, all differing in severity, based on the business.

There are many types of linear business models that are non-sustainable, but there are few core traits that they all have in common:

• They generate revenue through overconsumption (low margins, high volume).

• They do not take responsibility for their product after purchase.

Examples of this can be seen in the fashion industry - fast fashion drives sales through the overconsumption of low quality products, driven by trends and marketing, 

resulting in 92 million tonnes of clothing ending up in landfill every year. 

Navigating this lock-in is hard – it they’re very profitable and thus substituting them with an equally lucrative one is quite the challenge!

Infrastructure lock-ins occur when a company has invested equity into developing infrastructure, whether that be manufacturing lines, docks, etc, that support or are in their nature unsustainable. The challenge here is that these types of investments can take 20+ years to pay-off, making it hard to navigate. A great example of this is the shipping industry, where a new container ship starts at around 2 billion NOK. So what happens if a company’s fleet of ships has a very poor footprint, and the ships still have 10 years before the payback period is reached? This is a perfect example of one of those elephants in the room that no one wants to face due to the investment costs required to address it.


This is probably one of the most common ones, and also difficult to change. Bureaucracy exists to keep the status quo and limit major disruption. This is a problem, as it is precisely what sustainable transformation is about. Thus while many organisations might have recognised the need to adapt and transform, many fail to make the organisational adjustments required to ensure that real change can take place. One common way of bypassing this is through creating ventures, where a company starts a subsidiary company beyond it’s walls, freeing it of their bureaucracy. An excellent example of this is 

 a venture from Orkla, with the goal of transforming the way that packaging for consumer household goods works.

A consumer behaviour lock-in is a culturally systemic behaviour that a businesses leverages to develop their products and services. A great example of this is the meat industry. The CO2 from beef is astronomically higher than that of plant based foods. Depending what you compare it to, beef emits 

more emissions. Moreover, more than half of the world’s total landmass is used for grazing or growing food for animals - the biggest driver to our collapsing biosphere. This inconvenient truth has been a hard pill to swallow - few people, including politicians, are willing to forgo a good steak. Spanish politician Pedro Sanchez was asked to resign for even suggesting this. For the meat industry, it’s great: they have a guaranteed demand for their product, and thus continue to grow and expand. 

This dynamic is major driver for Norwegian meat consumption tripling the last 30 years, reaching an average per person of 72 kg of meat per year, which is around 300% more than the recommended average of 18-26 kg. How does a company that is locked into this addictive feedback loop escape when it is so lucrative?

Mindset and culture are probably the most obvious but equally difficult. For companies with legacy, recognising the need for change and challenging the status quo is generally very uncomfortable and is the first step any organisation needs to take. Frustratingly, while employees might recognise the urgency, ultimately, it requires top management buy-in and co-ordination. Without it, a company will not be able to dedicate the resources to finance and investigate the change they need to make.

What are the lock-ins companies must navigate?

So, how to navigate these challenges? For many years, responding to these lock-ins required companies to take their own initiative, which has resulted in very little traction. With the new EU Green Deal, however, incoming directives will require companies to tackle these lock-ins to meet the sustainable goals for the EU. 

 I detail clearer how to leverage new legislation to break out of the addictive linear lock-ins and take a leading position by being a first mover.

Five sustainability lock-ins companies must face to succeed in a circular economy