ISO 59010 is the international standard that guides an organisation through moving its business model from linear to circular. Published in 2024, it treats the move as a business decision rather than an environmental project.
Swapping a material changes a product. Moving to refill, rental or take-back changes how the company earns, and that second kind of change is what ISO 59010 is for, including the partners you depend on.
Most people expect a standard like this to land on the sustainability team. It is really for whoever owns the revenue model, because what it asks you to rethink is pricing, ownership and partners.
ISO 59010 at a glance
Here are the facts worth having before you open the standard itself.
| Detail | ISO 59010 |
|---|---|
| Standard | ISO 59010 |
| Full title | Circular economy, guidance on the transition of business models and value networks |
| Current edition | 2024 (first edition, published in May 2024) |
| Status | Published |
| Type | Guidance standard (not a certification) |
| Published by | ISO/TC 323, the technical committee for the circular economy |
| Structure | Eight clauses plus an annex of examples |
| Family | ISO 59000 series, built formally on ISO 59004 |
What a value creation model is
ISO 59010 says "value creation model" where most people say business model, and it treats the two as the same thing. Its definition sets up everything that follows.
A value creation model is an organisation's chosen system of connected and interdependent decisions and activities that determines how it creates, delivers and captures value.
That is wider than a product or a price list. It covers what you sell, who you sell it to, what you own, what you charge for and who you rely on to deliver it.
Our glossary entry on the circular business model is the plain-language version of the same idea.
Value chains and value networks
The second half of the title needs two more terms, and the standard defines both of them.
ISO 59010 defines a value chain as the set of organisations that together provide a product or service and get value out of doing it.
A value network is wider. It is the interlinked value chains and interested parties around that chain, so your suppliers and customers, but also carriers, recyclers, scheme operators and anyone else with a stake in how the product moves.
A chain is a line. A network is what that line actually sits inside, and the difference starts to matter the moment you try to get packaging back.
One more definition explains why circularity is a business question at all. ISO 59010 defines waste as a resource that is no longer treated as an asset because, at that moment, it gives its holder too little value.
Once someone else needs it, it stops being waste. The material has not changed. The economics have.
The path ISO 59010 sets out
The standard runs as five working clauses, numbered 4 to 8, that read as a sequence you can take in order. It is guidance rather than a rulebook, so each stage is a set of questions to work through rather than a box to tick.
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Set the goal and draw the boundary (Clause 4). Define what you are trying to achieve, understand the value creation model and value network you have today, map your value chain and the flows running through it, decide which part of the business you are addressing, and get an honest read on your current circularity performance. Clause 4 then works through the kinds of action available, grouped as adding value, retaining value, recovering value and regenerating ecosystems.
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Decide the strategy (Clause 5). Identify the gaps and the opportunities, build a strategy on circular economy principles, and deal with what ISO calls economic rationalization, which is the part where the numbers have to work.
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Change your own model (Clause 6). Write a plan, then go through the model element by element. ISO 59010 names those elements as the value proposition, key activities, key business resources, customer segments, customer relationships, channels, costs, revenue streams and key partners.
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Change the network around you (Clause 7). Shared objectives, a shared strategy and plan, governance for the network, and the physical and digital infrastructure the parties end up using together.
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Review and keep improving (Clause 8). Measure circularity performance, then improve the model and the network on the strength of what the measurements say.
Annex A closes the document with supplementary examples, and a companion technical report, ISO/TR 59032, collects examples of value networks that already exist.
Why a circular model needs your partners too
An entire clause here is about changing something you do not own, and that is what sets ISO 59010 apart from most standards.
Take a returnable transport crate. Designing a sturdier crate is the easy part. It only pays for itself if the customer sends it back, a carrier collects it, someone inspects and cleans it, and the cost of all that lands somewhere every party can live with. The arrangement is the product.
So the standard asks for shared objectives, a governance model and shared infrastructure before anything physical moves. Circular models tend to fail on the arrangement rather than on the design.
Who ISO 59010 is written for
Formally the scope covers any organisation, whatever its size, sector or region. In practice it lands first with the commercial and strategy leads, because pricing, ownership and revenue streams are the things on the table.
Around them sit the product and packaging teams who have to make the chosen model physically work, procurement and logistics who hold most of the network side, and the sustainability lead who usually needs the business case as much as the environmental one.
If you are a producer, the useful way to read it is as a way to structure a decision you are already being pushed towards, at a pace you set rather than the one a deadline sets for you.
Where ISO 59010 meets EPR fees and re-use targets
ISO 59010 is not a compliance document, but it does not pretend the law is beside the point.
Its introduction names extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies among the responses to the linear economy that are already reshaping business models, and the standard carries its own definition of EPR.
Under the EU's packaging regulation, three of those pressures reach straight into the model rather than stopping at the product.
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Fees follow design. Producers' EPR contributions will be modulated by how recyclable the packaging is, and they may also be modulated on recycled content. Member States can add further criteria, reusability among them, so the same tonnage can cost two producers different amounts. Our guide to calculating EPR fees walks through how that adds up.
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Recycled content stops being optional. Minimum recycled content for plastic packaging starts in 2030, which is a sourcing and contracting question long before it is a design question.
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Re-use gets a hard number. From 1 January 2030, operators using transport packaging and sales packaging for transport have to make sure at least 40 % of it is reusable within a re-use system, and from 2040 they must endeavour to reach 70 %.
That third one is the clearest overlap of the three. The regulation defines a re-use system as the organisational, technical or financial arrangements, together with incentives, that allow packaging to be re-used in a closed or open loop.
That is not a design brief. It is an arrangement between companies, which is precisely what Clause 7 of ISO 59010 is guidance for building.
Two things are worth stating plainly. The regulation never mentions ISO 59010, and following the standard does not make you compliant with anything. What it gives you is a method for a change the rules are pushing you towards anyway.
Whichever model you land on, you still have to report what you place on the market, per material and per country, which is the kind of record an EPR platform like Repax keeps.
How ISO 59010 differs from ISO 59004 and ISO 59020
The three core ISO 59000 standards all arrived in 2024, and they split the work cleanly between them.
| Standard | Its job |
|---|---|
| ISO 59004 | Defines the vocabulary and the principles, so everyone agrees what circular means |
| ISO 59010 | Guides the transition of the business model and the value network, so the change actually happens |
| ISO 59020 | Sets a framework for measuring circularity performance, so the result gets numbers |
Two details are worth holding on to. ISO 59010 lists ISO 59004 as its only normative reference, so the two are meant to be read together, and ISO 59010 describes itself as the more business-oriented of the pair, working at the level of one organisation and the organisations around it.
ISO 59004 stays deliberately generic and applies above that level as well.
Frequently asked questions about ISO 59010
Short, plain answers to the questions that come up most often.
What is ISO 59010?
ISO 59010 is the international standard, published in 2024, that guides an organisation through moving its business model and its value network from linear to circular. It is the practical, business-facing member of the ISO 59000 circular economy family.
Is ISO 59010 a certification?
No. It is a guidance standard you follow and reference, not a scheme you get audited and certified against. None of the core ISO 59000 standards are certifications, so there is no ISO 59010 certificate to display.
What edition of ISO 59010 is current?
The first edition, published in May 2024. It arrived alongside ISO 59004 and ISO 59020 in the first wave of ISO circular economy standards.
What is the difference between ISO 59010 and ISO 59004?
ISO 59004 fixes the vocabulary and the principles of the circular economy. ISO 59010 is the business-oriented follow-on that guides the transition itself, at the level of one organisation and the network around it. ISO 59010 formally references ISO 59004, so the two are used together.
What is a value network in ISO 59010?
A value network is a network of interlinked value chains and interested parties. In practice it is everyone whose behaviour your circular model depends on, so customers, carriers, recyclers and scheme operators, not only your direct suppliers.
Is ISO 59010 mandatory?
No, it is voluntary and no law requires it. Several of the outcomes it helps you reach are becoming mandatory, such as the EU re-use targets that start in 2030, so some producers use it to get there on purpose rather than in a rush.
How does ISO 59010 relate to EPR and EU packaging rules?
It is not a compliance route, and the EU packaging regulation does not mention it. The link is practical, because EPR fees are being tied to recyclability and recycled content, and the re-use targets require a re-use system, which is the kind of arrangement between parties that ISO 59010's guidance on value networks addresses.
Do you need ISO 59004 to use ISO 59010?
In practice, yes. ISO 59004 is ISO 59010's only normative reference and supplies most of the terms it uses, so working from ISO 59010 alone means guessing at definitions that are already settled next door.
