{"id":172079,"date":"2020-11-09T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=172079"},"modified":"2020-11-04T08:11:51","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T08:11:51","slug":"the-circular-economy-what-is-it-why-is-it-important-and-how-can-we-embrace-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/11\/the-circular-economy-what-is-it-why-is-it-important-and-how-can-we-embrace-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Circular Economy: What Is It, Why Is It Important and How Can We Embrace It?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Martin Wright, chair of Positive News and champion of circular economics, talks to us about the virtues of going round in circles.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Green Alley Award<\/p><\/div>\n

3 Nov 2020 – <\/em>Since the smut-belching days of the Industrial Revolution humanity has embraced a linear model of economics, which involves extracting resources from Earth, making things from them and dumping those things when they become surplus to requirements.<\/p>\n

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This model has some merit in that it has generated jobs and lifted many people\u2019s living standards, but it has also created the climate crisis, driven biodiversity loss and left behind mountains of waste. As a result, a growing number of people \u2013 from economists to entrepreneurs \u2013 now deem the linear model unfit for purpose.<\/p>\n

Enter the principle of circular economics, which twists the planet trashing linear model into a loop by eliminating rubbish entirely or treating it as a resource.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nothing goes to waste in the circular economy, which turns trash into treasure. Image: Bas Emmen<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Circularity was a fringe subject a decade ago, but no longer. The EU recently launched its Circular Economic Action Plan<\/a> to tackle waste, while pioneering brands such as Nike, Unilever and Stella McCartney have also embraced the principles of circularity.<\/p>\n

But it is agile startups that are developing perhaps the most innovative products, which are recognised at the annual Green Alley Award<\/a>, Europe\u2019s first competition for circular startups. Martin Wright, chair of Positive News and a judge for the Green Alley Award, believes that turning trash into treasure is a matter of human survival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t continue sucking up finite resources and spewing out waste and expect to have an environment in which we can thrive,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are running out of resources, and running out of ways to dispose of waste which doesn\u2019t cause problems. The climate emergency is merely the most dramatic example of the impact of an excessively linear, take-make-waste economy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For a lesson in circularity, Wright says we must look to nature. \u201cNature herself is a circular economy in action,\u201d he explains. \u201cNothing goes to waste. Plants flourish, fade and die, and become compost and food for other creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The previous winners and runners-up of the Green Alley Award<\/a> are disruptive startups that have demonstrably closed a loop where waste is concerned. Brands such as LivingPackets, which creates reusable envelopes and packets, and Gelatex Technologies, which turns organic waste from the livestock industry into a material to rival leather.<\/p>\n

Scaling up<\/h4>\n

While startups are showing just what can be achieved with stuff we had previously written off as waste, Wright says politicians must also act by bringing in smart regulation to help unleash the potential of the circular economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can encourage a more circular economy by a mix of regulation and fiscal incentives,\u201d he says. \u201cReframing the latter so we tax what we don\u2019t want (pollution), not what we do (jobs), would be a start. In an ideal world, we\u2019d put a price on carbon in line with science-based targets to keep global warming to under 1.5 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Businesses, he adds, also have a role to play. \u201cCompanies should do what they do best \u2013 pursue the business opportunities which lie in the circular economy, and lobby governments for regulations which encourage them to do so, by penalising wasteful business models.\u201d<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence (AI) also has the potential to accelerate our shift towards circular economics, says Wright, although safeguards must be put in place to protect jobs and ensure those who lose theirs to machines are reskilled. \u201cGet it right and AI could power a fourth Industrial Revolution,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Nature is a circular economy in action. Nothing goes to waste. Plants flourish, fade and die, and become compost and food for other creatures.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

AI has huge potential to eliminate waste in the energy industry, says Wright, who says it could be used to make the grid more efficient by ensuring exactly the right amount of energy is available when and where it is needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe millions of financial transactions involved would be managed smoothly thanks to secure blockchain connections and the internet of things,\u201d he says. \u201cIn turn, this would make viable a whole range of energy innovations, such as \u2018solar sprays\u2019 to turn every exterior surface of a building into a power plant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wrights says there will be plenty more ideas where that came from at the forthcoming Green Alley Award, which is open for entries until 17 November.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – positive.news<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 Nov 2020 – The principle of circular economics twists the planet trashing linear model into a loop by eliminating rubbish entirely or treating it as a resource. The virtues of going round in circles: Nature is a circular economy in action. Nothing goes to waste. Plants flourish, fade and die, and become compost and food for other creatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":172081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238],"tags":[952,354,401,391,984,330],"class_list":["post-172079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paradigm-changes","tag-agriculture","tag-economics","tag-environment","tag-nature","tag-paradigm-change","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}