COIL: Advancing Circularity in Businesses and Communities

Today almost every product we consume is made from virgin materials, used for a time and eventually thrown away. This is called the linear economy. It is wasteful and inefficient for businesses, and unsustainable for our environment. 

The Circular Economy is the future.

Circular approaches capture and reuse waste materials, creating innovative new products and business models, and redesign supply chains to be more sustainable and resilient. The circular economy has sparked the imagination of businesses and organizations across Ontario, Canada and the world.

But how does an entrepreneur or established business test a new circular business model or product? How do they find end-of-life materials to reuse, or other businesses interested in collaborating?

That’s where we come in.

The Circular Opportunity Innovation Launchpad (COIL) is an innovation platform and activation network aimed at creating, proving and scaling transformative solutions that will move Canada toward a more sustainable, circular economy.

Together with our partners, the City of Guelph is launching programs, Test Beds and platforms designed to mobilize organizations towards circularity. We will inspire and support circular businesses, social enterprises and collaborations in the food and environment sectors.

Between 2021 and 2024, COIL will:

  • Accelerate 49 circular businesses and ideas into the circular economy – including businesses, not-for-profits and social enterprises – to the point of being investor ready.
  • Expand the Harvest Impact social impact investment fund with a goal to raise $3 million and create a community-based lending facility that provides access to capital for food and environment sector companies and enterprising not-for-profits.
  • Launch 5 flagship demonstration projects to provide innovative circular business models at a large scale that can serve as an example to their industry.
  • Launch 3 Circulate CoLab Challenges that create new collaborations between industry partners and design out waste.
  • Expand the Guelph-Wellington Circular Economy Urban Rural Test Bed to bring together a rich group of hub innovators, entrepreneurs and researchers from across southern Ontario.
  • Expand the Circular Economy Data Hub to provide data resources for circular businesses across southern Ontario.
  • Launch the ReSource Exchange marketplace to help connect businesses and turn waste materials or by-products into a new value stream.
  • Create a national network with circular economy labs across Canada.

Acceleration and funding programs will be delivered in collaboration with Guelph-Wellington’s Smart Cities funded initiative, Our Food Future. COIL will leverage its extensive network of researchers, post-secondary institutions, industry experts, not-for-profit organizations, business-accelerator organizations, and public-sector enterprises.

If you have any questions about our programs or strategy to grow the circular economy, please contact us at [email protected]