Dublin, March 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Obligation to Opportunity: Closing a Circular Loop in DIY" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

When DIY companies make 2030 circularity promises, there is an awkward elephant in the room. 68% of DIY revenue links to bonding product use (paint, adhesive, grout or sealant), a sector with unbreakable bonds as part of "premium" definitions, an almost anti-circular mission. How will brands and retailers close the loop? We interviewed multiple DIY companies and offer a framework, including ideas for where the solution will ultimately come from, with visible risks of inaction.

The Obligation to Opportunity: Closing a Circular Loop in DIY global briefing offers the big picture view of the size and shape of the Home and Garden market. The report delivers strategic insight into some of the key areas of the market, including emerging regions, countries and categories, as well as pressing industry issues and white spaces. It identifies opportunities, analyses leading companies and brands, and offers analysis of major factors influencing the market. Forecasts illustrate how the market is set to change and criteria for success

There is an elephant in the room for bonding product circularity we need to fix

When we study circularity end-of-life for DIY bonding products, currently 97% of material escapes the loop, it is harming sustainability options for a large portion of all DIY spend, and circularity so far was about closing other industries' loops, not our own. There are three barriers (below) we need to overcome, and if we do not solve all three parts, the solution to any one part cannot ever pay off.

Contamination of DIY waste is the first barrier to overcome

Brands today are fabricating uncontaminated waste (ie not genuine) to allow needed end-of-life residual value tests. If we do not change waste handling during renovations and adopt Designing for Deconstruction principles in formulation and ideation, we will never close the loop; we will never even realistically test residual value in waste to know if there is profit in becoming circular.

Recovering waste has reverse last mile with batch-of-one issues

As long as managers feel removed geographically and temporally from the moment of product end-of-life, they will also feel unaccountable and will continue to accept words like "impossible". If companies face this in isolation, the scale, complexity and influence barriers are dealbreakers. We need to escape silo thinking; alliances in Consumer System Thinking are the answer we see.

Where is the money? Until circularity means profit, it will not scale

There are circularity dead ends, like polymer cross-linking, that need to be fixed in formulation; this was the elephant in the room blocking progress so far, but recent technologies solve this. Once we prove embedded value in waste, finance can shift to a circular business model that views waste as a recoverable asset on balance sheets, and sustainability goals become profit goals.

If we do not solve circularity in bonding products, we face extreme disruption

The most attractive future vision is of a bonding products industry stakeholder alliance launching a product formulation that escapes cross-linked polymers, with residual value worth recovering that funds circularity, and this sector can start genuinely chasing 100% circular claims. The darker versions of forced regulation and deselection at retail have moving parts already visible today.

Report Scope:

• Product coverage: Home Improvement and Gardening, Homewares and Home Furnishings.
• Data coverage: Market sizes (historic and forecasts), company shares, brand shares and distribution data.

Why buy this report?

• Get a detailed picture of the Home and Garden market;
• Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change;
• Understand the competitive environment, the market's major players and leading brands;
• Use five-year forecasts to assess how the market is predicted to develop

Key Topics Covered:

Introduction

• This topic's origin, the challenge's crux, and why change is needed - all in one dialogue
• Bonding products are in scope, but the knock-on circularity issue is felt far more broadly
• Circularity promises for 2030 have yet to touch closing the product loop at end-of-life
• In the bonding products lifecycle, 97% of waste currently escapes the loop by end-of-life
• Messaging about end-of-life circularity is conspicuously absent from parts of the sector
• There are regions of the world that are going to care about this topic more than others
• Leroy Merlin's Home Index starts to look like one of the building blocks of inevitability
• A world with less paint - new surface designs that take away a motive to refresh
• A world with less adhesives - surface designs that take away the waste during a refresh

Contamination of DIY waste is the first barrier to overcome

• Contamination currently blocks even testing end-of-life value; we are stuck at this step
• Making products last longer is one way to move the needle; but there is another moment
• Contamination comes from the bonding missions, or additives during the act of removal
• Product design needs to start taking the economics of disassembly far more seriously
• No stakeholders are incentivised to reduce contamination, at any stage of the lifecycle
• Part of the problem: WD-40 offers fast and easy removal, and it then blocks EOL options
• Part of the solution: Tesa's new adhesives have a "tensile versus sheer" breakthrough
• We need Designing for Deconstruction to normalise, and we need to fix waste handling

Recovering waste has reverse last mile with batch-of-one issues

• Overcoming the scale issue is about "Consumer System Thinking" and not going it alone
• Consumer systems: A conceptual tool promoting disruptive thinking and broad horizons
• Brands do not need to solve reverse last mile; they need a "friend" that already fixed this
• There are partners who can also make the leap to influencing renovation waste control
• Kingfisher as a partner example is a contact point for a lot of the needed moving parts
• Consumer System Thinking is how we solve both the immediate and ultimate challenge

Where is the money? Until circularity means profit, it will not scale

• Elephant in the room: Cross-linked polymers are mission critical, and non-recyclable
• The direction of travel for regulation that will force the sector's hand is not at all hidden
• EU regulation creates a framework implying a ticking clock for the sector to self-solve
• Self-image, ethics and reality do not always coincide, so can we pass through the costs?
• Cutting-edge re cycling with existing formulations is only possible for fresh (wet) product
• The best we can do with the paint pasty fraction (recovered dry paint) is down cycling
• Patents and promises: Innovations in the pipeline for dynamic covalent networks
• Action now makes sense, only because all three barriers start to have viable answers

Conclusion

• Time is a variable, the circular destination is not; we solve the issue, or we will be solved
• We foresee three ways this situation can play out, based on the current variables in play
• Recommendations for how brands can make progress developing necessary solutions
• Lowest hanging fruits and risks implied on this journey for retailing and value creation
• Reuse and removing initial waste during application requires more consumer incentives
• Evolution of the circular loop for bonding products in DIY
• Questions we are asking
• A parting thought

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/5b0srg

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