10 things you need to know about Circular Economy
“The linear “take-make-dispose” system, which depletes natural resources and generates waste, is deeply flawed and can be productively replaced by a restorative model.” — Dame Ellen MacArthur
Circular Economy is a topic that has gained interest worldwide due to the recognition that security of supply of resources and resource efficiency is crucial for the prosperity of economies, businesses, and maintenance of natural capital.
Governments have started adopting targets based on building a more circular governance, companies are coming up with innovative business models based on practices like upscaling processes and sharing assets, and product design is slowly shifting towards a resource efficiency mindset.
Although the entire buzz created around Circular Economy, what does it really mean? Here are 10 things you need to know about it:
1. Circular Economy is not a new concept. It became “trending” after Ellen MacArthur Foundation started an international movement towards spreading circular ideas and projects, but the German economist Wassily Leontief idealized it in 1928 through his work “The Economy as Circular Flow”.
2. Circular Economy is based on several other well-established schools of thought, such as life cycle thinking, cradle-to-cradle, industrial ecology, biomimicry, etc.
3. China was the first country to adopt circular economy national policies when, in 2008, it published it’s “Circular Economy Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China”
4. Circular practices can be divided into three levels: macro (cities and governments), meso (industrial parks and business models) and micro (products).
5. The European Commission has adopted an ambitious new Circular Economy Package to help European businesses and consumers to make the transition to a stronger and more circular economy where resources are used in a more sustainable way.
6. Amsterdam is the world’s leading city when it comes to the Circular Economy. The city of Amsterdam has the ambitious goal to become a circular city by 2050.
7. We do not have an efficient circularity indicator yet, some attempts have been made, but we have not reached that point yet.
8. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that, if a more circular economy was adopted, over US$1 trillion a year could be generated by 2025 for the global economy.
9. Adapting a circular economy would mean creating innovative business models, which, as estimated by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, could generate more than 100,000 new jobs created for the next five years if companies focused on encouraging the build-up of circular supply chains to increase the rate of recycling, reuse and remanufacture.
10. The adoption of circular practices in large scale would be a critical and positive approach towards staying below the 1.5ºC target indicated by the latest IPCC report.
Circular Economy is a broad and new topic. The next articles will cover the specifics of it, and it’s relation with global environmental problems.
