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Competencies of transition brokers
To be entrepreneurial, dare to leave your comfort zone, persevere, be
impatient and be willing to follow up with contacts
To excite and inspire others to cooperate
To think and act from a systems perspective but at the same time to be
pragmatic
To get the idea of circular economy accepted in a variety of businesses
and organisations, translate the desired actions into the language of
other organisations and do not appear threatening
To act in the collective interest and be professional enough to stand
above the parties
To have a very broad knowledge base in circular economy innovations,
the business environment and political culture
To be able to open doors at all policy levels to remove barriers that
need to be solved by governments
As it can be difficult to combine all of these requirements in
one person, two or more persons can be included to cover all
competencies needed in the team.
In all three product chains described in chapter 4, I acted as one
of the transition brokers. In the case of mattresses, I started the
initiative because the product was one of the nine priorities in
strategy 1 of the regional circular economy programme. Soon after
the start, I realised that a circular mattress initiative could not take
off on a regional scale. I therefore co-organised and moderated
a circular economy lab on closing the loop of mattresses, where
all segments of the product chain were represented. After the
lab, they agreed on drafting a voluntary EPR. I expected that
the next phase, getting consensus on this instrument, would be
time-consuming, which is why I handed over my role as transition
broker to the branch organisation of municipal cleaning services.
Because progress was going too slowly, I requested the Ministry