What is the Circular Economy?
"It's a new way to design, make, and use things within planetary boundaries.
By designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems we can reinvent everything"
It may sound complicated and like the latest ‘buzz word’ but the ethos behind a Circular Economy is not new. ‘Make do and mend’, ‘Waste not want not’, and ‘One person’s trash is another person’s treasure’ are phrases we hear or would even have heard our grandparents talking about and they very much embody circular economy thinking.
The circular economy is about making the best use of what we already have, and when we are designing or buying new things we must consider how long they will last, how easily they can be repaired and kept in use, and how we can reuse, repurpose or recycle them once we no longer need them.
Circular Economy Principles
There are four key circular economy principles, the circular economy is a system where materials never become waste and nature is regenerated. We need to design out waste and pollution from the outset.
In a circular economy, products and materials are kept at their highest value possible for as long as possible, keeping them in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting. The circular economy promotes doing more good, not just less bad – regenerating natural systems and enabling nature to thrive.
The circular economy tackles climate change and other global challenges, like biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution, by decoupling (separating) economic activity from the consumption of finite resources.
Moving to a circular economy is part of the solution to creating a healthier, lower carbon world. With 55% of our carbon emissions globally coming from energy, reducing our energy consumption and moving to renewable energy both play a vital role in addressing climate change, but we cannot only focus on this.
In order to achieve targets to reduce further climate change, it is critical that we also move away from the ‘take, make, use, waste’ linear economy towards a circular economy, transforming how we design, make, and use products, buildings and food to address the remaining 45% of emissions.
Mass production and consumption has a large and negative environmental impact on our planet. By keeping what we already have in use for longer, and buying less brand new items, fewer virgin resources need to be extracted which not only leads to lower carbon emissions but can also decrease air, land and marine pollution and reduce negative impact on biodiversity.
Circular Business Models
Businesses and community organisations can use a number of different business models to bring a circular approach to how they operate and the products and/or services they provide. One way of illustrating this is the diagram above.
We need to think about how to keep products in use for longer:
Can we extend the life of our products by using more robust materials and making them easy to repair. The company Caterpillar, over-engineer their engine blocks by design to ensure they can be remanufactured several times before being taken apart and recycled, maximising material use and retaining value.
Do we have products that are underutilised that could be shared? From a simple WhatsApp group created by neighbours to share garden equipment to an intercompany resources database, we need to get better at ensuring what we have is used (eg. design spaces for multiple uses, or ensure equipment is not replicated unnecessarily) and/or doesn’t sit in a cupboard for 95% of its life
Did you know that a household drill is used on average for only 13 minutes in its lifetime?
How might we ‘servitise’ something instead of selling it – which means giving access to that product through a rental service – for example there are a number of outdoor equipment organisations now that rent tents and hiking gear so people can choose to rent for when they need it rather than spend more buying and then store it for the other 49 weeks of the year.
When designing a new product our materials choices impact the whole life of that product, not only how long it lasts but also what can happen to it at end of (first, second…) life.
If the product is made from one material or at least materials that can be easily separated then it will be easier to cycle those materials back in a ‘clean loop’ to the production of new material – for example the closed loop recycling of aluminium, aluminium is a carbon intensive product but it can be reused and infinitely recycled.
Biobased materials, if uncontaminated, can be reused, repurposed and recycled as they ‘cascade’ through the system (for example after many decades of use a large piece of structural wood no longer suitable for building use could be processed into timber planks, after several uses as floorboards the planks maybe used to make a table, after years as a table is may be chipped to make a fibre board, after many years of use this board may then be turned into feedstock for biomass.