Designing Businesses, Brands, Products and Services That Can Endure
For over 40 years, Circularity Edge’s Ken Alston has been a pioneering leader in business sustainability and circular economy transformation.
We help executives and founders build resilient, future-proof businesses. Our proprietary frameworks, systems, and diagnostic tools, allied with our deep industry expertise, have guided dozens of companies to unlock sustainable growth and create lasting value.
Circularity Edge exists to help business leaders confront a reality that most organizations sense, but few can clearly articulate:
The systems that enabled growth over the past century are increasingly unable to sustain the conditions required for long-term continuity.
This is not a failure of intent.
It is a failure of models.
Circularity Edge was founded to address this structural mismatch — by bringing living-system logic into enterprise design, strategy, and governance.
Our Point of Departure
For decades, sustainability has been framed as a secondary concern:
- a reporting function
- a compliance exercise
- a reputational safeguard
These approaches organize topics, but they do not redesign systems.
Circularity Edge begins from a different premise:
Human enterprises must be designed to sustain the conditions that allow life — and therefore business — to continue.
This requirement is not ideological.
It is structural.
The Role of Frameworks
Circularity Edge works through a set of interlocking frameworks developed over decades of applied practice:
- The Tactical Tetrahedron™ — a three-dimensional model for understanding how living systems behave over time
- Design Like Nature™ — a sequenced transformation system that guides leaders from diagnosis through redesign
- Vitacide Risk™ — a framework for identifying and reducing risk created by undermining life-supporting systems
Together, these frameworks allow leaders to:
- see systemic reality clearly
- redesign organizations for coherence
- restore resilience without sacrificing performance
Ken Alston
Founder | Framework Architect
Circularity Edge is founded and led by Ken Alston, one of the earliest practitioners of corporate sustainability and circular-economy thinking.
Ken’s work spans more than four decades and includes:
- establishing one of the first corporate sustainability functions in a multinational company (1992)
- a 17-year collaboration with William McDonough and Dr. Michael Braungart
- leading roles in the creation of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and Cradle to Cradle Certification v1.0
- advisory and keynote work across North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Caribbean
Ken is known for his ability to:
- see structural misalignment others overlook
- reframe complex challenges in first-principles terms
- catalyze innovation by redesigning the conditions under which teams operate
He does not deliver “best practices.”
He alters the logic of the system itself.
Kevin De Cuba
Co-Founder | Americas Lead
Circularity Edge is co-owned with Kevin de Cuba, founder of the Americas Sustainable Development Foundation, the Circular Economy Platform of the Americas (CEPA), and its flagship event, the Circular Economy Forum of the Americas (CEFA).
Kevin has been a long-standing collaborator and regional leader in advancing circular economy thinking across Latin America and the Caribbean. He plays a central role in:
- regional engagement and partnership development
- Spanish-language leadership and delivery
- contextualizing frameworks for diverse economic and cultural environments
Kevin leads Circularity Edge’s work across the Americas, ensuring regional depth, continuity, and trusted relationships.
How We Work Inside Organizations
Circularity Edge does not operate as an external advisory imposing solutions.
Our work typically involves:
- entering moments of strategic uncertainty or transition
- working alongside leadership and cross-functional teams
- revealing systemic constraints and hidden risks
- supporting redesign at the level of structure, language, and decision logic
Innovation is not introduced as a goal.
It emerges naturally once linear assumptions are released.
Who We Work With
Circularity Edge works with leaders responsible for long-term continuity, including:
- CEOs and founders
- executive teams
- boards and governance bodies
- public institutions and universities
Our work is best suited to organizations willing to examine how their systems truly function — and to act on what becomes visible.
Begin with Clarity
Most engagements begin with the Primal Mandate™ Diagnostic, which provides a structured way to see where misalignment is already occurring — and where redesign is possible.
→ Take the DiagnosticEnduring enterprises are not optimized.
They are designed.