Circular Economy and Climate Change

“The time is past when humankind thought it could selfshly draw on exhaustible resources. We know now the world is not a commodity.” — François Hollande, former president of France.

We live in a mainly linear economy, an economic model based on ‘take, make, dispose’, in which resources are extracted, products made and, in general, disposed shortly after. The opposite of a linear economy is a circular economy.

In a pure circular economy there is no such thing as waste, only renewable energy is used and resource use is optimized. The focus of a circular economy is to reduce, reuse and recycle as waste management strategies.

As the linear economy drives over-consumption and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, it is also responsible for increasing waste production: generating and getting rid of waste (moving it to to landfills and incinerators) strongly contributes to climate change.

The problem is not only at the disposal stage, before that natural resources were extracted, manufactured, transported and consumed and in all these steps greenhouse gas emissions were produced.

Global climate change is high on the political agenda. During the climate negotiations in Paris in December 2016, countries all over the world pledged to keep global temperature rise below 2ºC and if possible to 1.5ºC.

According to a new study by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra and the European Climate Foundation, an improved circular economy can play a vital role in achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

“This striking study makes it abundantly clear that to meet the Paris Agreement commitments, the future EU economy must include circular business models, increased recirculation of materials and more material efficient products” — Martin Porter, Europe Group Co-ordinator of the European Climate Foundation.

The study found a witch to the circular use notably of steel, plastics, aluminium and cement can be central to cutting global greenhouse gas emissions, and that a more circular economy in the EU alone could cut industrial emissions by more than half by 2050.

From a practical point of view, reducing demand for materials directly reduces CO2 emissions due to the decreased energy demand for materials extraction and production.

Demand reduction can be achieved by using materials more efficiently, by moving from product ownership to product use, by redesigning products with less or less polluting materials and by reducing the overall demand for products.

Decreased materials use, increased recycling and resource optimization can and should be seen as strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

According to CE Delft’s report “Circular Economy as a key instrument for reducing climate change”, governments worldwide do not generally refer to circular economy policies as means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, the main sectors that would be responsible for tackling climate change would be energy and transport. The report shows that circular economy can in many cases also be seen as an effective climate strategy.

Circular economy can make policies more efficient and cost-effective. It also makes it more likely that the Paris climate goals will indeed be secured worldwide. The support from civil society to pressure the government into developing circular initiatives is crucial.

We cannot wait for solutions to come only from top, but we should rather start upscaling circular solution from all parts of society.