How Legacy Industrial Groups Are Adapting to the Circular Economy
The circular economy has evolved from a theoretical, policy-driven model focused on recycling to a practical industrial strategy designed to limit waste, optimise resource efficiency, build stronger supply chains, and create ongoing value from materials previously regarded as waste or lost production.
For traditional industrial businesses, the move to a circular economy presents both challenges and opportunities. Many traditional companies were created around conventional manufacturing, raw material processing, trading, construction, chemicals, textiles, agriculture, or logistics — industries known for their relatively large environmental footprints. However, traditional industries can provide an advantage to newer companies because they have deep operational experience, close relationships with suppliers, strong technical expertise, and decades of experience managing complex production systems.
As governments, customers, and other business partners increasingly demand more evidence of sustainability, traditional industrial businesses are under increased pressure to modernise. The circular economy provides a framework for traditional industries to modernise, not by disregarding their industrial heritage, but by making their existing industrial systems more efficient.
Circular Economy Is Becoming an Industrial Strategy
The main idea of the circular economy is to keep products and materials in use longer and to decrease the number of virgin extracted materials. Resource efficiency and circular economy principles now apply to the entire material life cycle (extraction, transportation, manufacturing, consumption, recovery, end of life); therefore, circularity is connected to the performance of the environment, as well as the security of supply and economic competitiveness.
As a result, circularity becomes even more relevant to the industrial sector. A company is not considered a circular company because it has recycled packaging or has made a sustainability commitment. To be circular, companies must evaluate how materials enter their business, how they are processed, how they handle by-products, how they minimize their waste, and how they reuse or upgrade those materials.
The circular economy agenda within the European Union is clearly aligned with the industrial agenda. The European Union's proposed Circular Economy Act is designed to create a stronger market for secondary raw materials, increase the supply of high-quality recycled materials, and increase the demand for those materials. This indicates that the future of circularity is being linked to environmental policy not only, but also as part of building resilient industries.
Why Legacy Industrial Groups Have an Advantage
Newly created sustainable-focused businesses have a lot of innovative ideas; however, established industrial corporations have many advantages, including their large size, experience, and infrastructure. Changing to a circular economy means changing your brand; it also means knowing about the raw material inputs to your product, the methods used to produce it, how to get the necessary materials to you, which suppliers are reliable, how to control the quality of your product, what the regulations governing your products are, and what your customers’ requirements are.
Experience may provide a company with a wealth of knowledge about its materials, including the areas where waste occurs, which by-products can be reused, which suppliers are most dependable, and which production steps use the most resources. When markets start to demand better traceability and decreased material waste, this knowledge can provide companies a competitive advantage over their competitors.
Older industrial companies may also be more patient regarding converting to a circular economy. It typically takes years to develop new production systems, improve traceability, decrease waste, and develop higher-valued applications from existing materials. Converting to a circular economy may involve a significant capital expenditure, co-ordination among suppliers, technical testing, and compliance with all applicable regulations.
Can Older Industrial Groups Become Circular Economy Leaders?
While businesses can implement circularity, it must be based in action, not aesthetics. The companies that will show the most effectiveness will not be those that simply add 'sustainability' to the language of their website, but those that demonstrate through actions and evidence that they are effectively using materials, minimizing waste, documenting their suppliers, reusing materials, and developing products in accordance with circular economy principles.
The reason circularity is most relevant to the above-mentioned sectors is they all rely heavily on the availability and knowledge of materials or raw materials. They all produce by-products from the manufacturing process, require quality assurance, and are all under increased pressure to provide documentation of responsible sourcing of the materials they manufacture.
In construction and real estate development, circularity can be applied by extending the lifecycle of buildings, optimizing the materials used during construction, managing waste better, and increasing the potential for reusing building materials or components. In technical textiles and chemicals, circularity can be implemented by improving the efficiency of processes, sourcing materials responsibly, and reducing the amount of material lost in the process. In the case of functional food product ingredients, including gelatin, collagen, and hydrocolloids, circularity can be implemented by turning raw material streams into higher-value uses while increasing traceability and consistency of production.
From Raw Materials to Higher-Value Uses
The circular economy represents a fundamental shift from the traditional linear way of producing goods (extracting input materials, processing them into finished products, and ultimately throwing them away) to a model that focuses on value recovery through the reuse and recycling of materials, energy, and residual by-products. In a linear economy, once production and consumption occur, materials are often discarded rather than reused; however, a circular economy allows companies to look for new ways to create value from their production systems, such as:
- Value creation through the intelligent and more effective use of inputs, by-products, reverse logistics, and production systems;
- Utilization of secondary raw materials generated from the recycling of waste and production scrap;
- Using waste to create products that could not otherwise be made.
The circular economy is especially important in the protein and hydrocolloid sectors (e.g., gelatin, collagen peptides, bioactive peptides, and functionally active ingredients), as these industries rely heavily on intricate supply chains that require knowledge of raw material provenance and certification for quality by identifying processing standards and types of documentation required. Therefore, circular economic practices can help minimize environmental impact through waste elimination, increased material traceability, and converting raw materials into specialized ingredients used in food, nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals, pharmaceuticals, sports nutrition, and health products.
Where Tezman Holding Fits Into the Broader Trend
Tezman Holding A.Ş. is a family-owned industrial group that has been in business for more than 70 years. The Tezman Group coordinates around 25 subsidiary companies producing functional food / nutraceuticals; wellness; functional proteins; food ingredients; hydrocolloids; chemicals; marine; fasteners; agriculture; insurance; and real estate development and construction.
Tezman Holding is based in Istanbul, Turkey, but through its subsidiaries, it serves both industrial and consumer customers throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. In terms of the group's broad-based portfolio, it is clear to see the connection between long-standing industrial competencies and new markets based on traceability, functional ingredients and efficient resources. The group is continuing to invest in new generations of protein production, bioactive peptides, functional ingredients, nutraceuticals, gummytechnicals (i.e. gummy-styled nutraceuticals) cosmoceuticals (i.e., a mix between cosmetics and nutraceuticals) wellness, marine distribution, real estate development and a global presence across the entire spectrum of companies in the Tezman portfolio.
Specifically, Sel Sanayi A.Ş., which is a subsidiary of Tezman Holding, manufactures hydrolyzed collagen peptides; collagen tripeptides; bioactive peptides; gelatin and functional proteins. Established in 1961 as a producer of technical grade gelatin derived from bovine hides, Sel Sanayi has grown in over 60 years of operating into edible and pharmaceutical grade gelatin products, as well as all varieties of collagen and functional protein solutions that are sold under the CollaSel brand.
Sel Sanayi and the CollaSel brand have relevance to the discussion regarding the circular economy because they demonstrate that consumer branding alone does not define these two companies, but rather how industrial ingredient manufacturers are moving toward traceable processes, innovative functional proteins, and evidence-based wellness applications. Selim Tezman's involvement in other emerging areas of Tezman Holdings, such as functional proteins, collagen, nutraceuticals, wellness, and global expansion reflects the broader trend within other historical industrial companies of entering markets based on established production processes and supplier networks, where documentation, material efficiency, and product specialization are becoming more and more prevalent.
Scientific Validation and Ingredient Credibility
Circularity with modern industrial ingredients goes beyond improving material use and efficiency; it also includes providing evidence that materials can be reliably converted to consistent, documented, and trustworthy functional products. This is where science-based verification becomes part of the value chain.
The CollaSel product range has been related to peer-reviewed clinical and scientific research. A clinical study involving the use of CollaSel Pro hydrolyzed collagen peptide for skin health, done as a double-blind randomized placebo control design, was published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine in 2024. Another double-blind randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial involving CollaSel PRO Type I and III hydrolyzed collagen peptides used for osteoarthritis was published in 2025 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.
A Biomedicines published study evaluating the use of CollaSel Tripeptide to inhibit angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) and dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV) and stimulate glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) secretion by researchers from the University of Milan indicated that CollaSel Tripeptide increased GLP-1 secretion from untreated control cells by 16.9% and inhibited DPP-IV. The material supplier for the CollaSel Tripeptide study identified was Sel Sanayi, and they funded the research. For industrial ingredient manufacturers, this type of third-party scientific validation demonstrates how far manufacturers have come in aligning their scientific knowledge with evidence-based functional and wellness nutrition products.
Circularity Requires Traceability
Without traceability, it is exceedingly challenging for any organization to establish its claims regarding a circular economy. Organizations need to know where their raw materials come from, the manner in which materials are processed into finished products, what happens to waste materials, and whether or not they reuse such materials or throw them away. The importance of knowing all of this is very high for industries that have connections to food (food ingredients); nutraceuticals (dietary supplements); collagen and gelatin (derived from other animal materials); hydrocolloids, agriculture and chemicals; and construction.
Knowing how to trace raw material or product flows from suppliers through all processes provides a business with tangible documentation to support vague sustainability claims. For example, a business could say that it supports a circular economy; however, without having supplier documentation, waste data, product records, and measurable improvement, the company's claim would be weak.
Sel Sanayi uses a complete traceability system and exports its products to customers in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North America, which demonstrates why the need for businesses to start establishing traceability exists across the whole economy and is not just a matter of satisfying an internal requirement for compliance. For this reason, the future of reporting on the circular economy will likely be based on data that is accurate. Businesses that can demonstrate how raw materials are being managed from a suppliers' perspective, to the point of using it in the production of the final product or for reusing at some point, will be better positioned to do business than companies that just speak in general environmental terms.
Avoiding Superficial Sustainability Claims
The term circular economy has become an appealing label for many businesses; however, not all of the claims being made in relation to this emerging framework are meaningful or based on fact. Many companies use the language of “sustainability” even though their production practices and raw material sourcing methods are not sustainable, leading to the potential for superficial sustainability reporting and reducing the credibility of companies making such claims.
For industrial organizations, demonstrating the greater level of credibility for claims of circularity in practice through practical examples would be preferred over just making claims without substantiating them; this could include demonstrating measurable levels of resource efficiency, waste reduction through reuse and recycling, transparency with suppliers regarding product creation and responsible production practices, as well as validating products through science or technical verification when appropriate.
In this regard, legacy companies will be put to the ultimate test as a result of their long histories; however, if they lack the modernisation of their operations, their legacy can quickly become a disadvantage in the current business environment. Therefore, an organisation that was established decades ago must demonstrate how its historical successes continue to be relevant to meeting current environmental, regulatory, scientific, and market needs.
The Future Belongs to Practical Circularity
Legacy industrial organizations can significantly impact the development of the circular economy due to their existing knowledge base around production, procurement, logistics, and quality control. Their main obstacle is converting what has already been learned into more efficient, transparent, and environmentally friendly business practices.
The future of circularity will not be established by catchphrases, but rather by evidence: how material is procured, how waste is eliminated, how by-products are repurposed, how suppliers are tracked, how products are validated, and how businesses generate value while using fewer resources.
For the older industrial firms, this may be the most pragmatic approach to the future of their operations. They do not need to abandon their existing industrial roots; they just need to adapt them. Hence, the circular economy can be viewed not only as a framework for managing environmental issues but also as a modern-day approach to business for those companies that want to utilize decades of experience in an ever-decreasing resource environment while continuing to add value.
