The Ins and Outs of the Circular Economy: Circular vs Linear
For many of us, thinking about climate change and trying to solve its myriad challenges feels overwhelming and can lead to pessimism about the future and whether we will actually be able to reduce our pollution. Most of the time we see and hear the worst statistics and predictions for the future, and it’s difficult to see past those, particularly in the US where we continue to have widespread opposition to curtailing our oil and gas use. One way we can think more optimistically is to think about the solutions that exist and think about ways that you can try and advocate for and live those solutions in your community.
One of those solutions that we are particularly interested in here at KKB, is the transition to a circular economy. The circular economy not only deals with waste (hooray!) but also deals with sustainability, energy reduction, regeneration, restoration, etc. It’s an economic solution that is designed to benefit individuals, businesses, society, and the environment. It’s currently a hot topic issue when it comes to climate change, and you’ve probably seen more and more companies claiming to be circular or close-looped. So, what exactly is the circular economy, what does it mean for climate change, and how does it intersect with other issues that our society is currently facing.
“Take-Make-Waste” Linear Economy
Unlike the natural environment, which operates in cycles - plants grow in soil, animals eat plants, and their waste replenishes the soil - the industrial economy is largely linear, and is often described as the “take-make-waste” system. Since the industrial revolution, we have created not only products of convenience, but also luxury items and products that aren’t necessary to live healthy lives. We have mobile phones, washing machines, laptops, and toys. We also have increasing amounts of single-use plastic and other durable plastics, which require fossil fuels to create and are often littered into the environment. While the industrial revolution brought extraordinary benefits to society, there are significant limitations to this economic model.
Image Source: Eastman
The take-make-waste system is one where energy and resources are input, transformed into products, and then discarded once they are no longer needed. There are many limitations to the linear economic model, including its reliance on unlimited resources and raw materials - something our planet doesn’t actually have. The linear economy also requires a significant amount of energy and water to produce different kinds of goods, and this production contributes to climate change, harmful pollution, the degradation of water quality, and the destruction of aquatic ecosystems. The majority of the products we have created are used and then thrown away, sometimes littered, and often leaching toxic chemicals into the environment.
Marc de Wit from Circle Economy has noted that about two-thirds of the materials we extracted from the planet in 2015 have been thrown out or scattered irretrievably. It’s not only common material like plastic waste that has drifted onto our landscape and into our waterways, but rainwater often washes chemical fertilizers off the land and into our water system. A third of all the food we produced rotted, and fossil fuel waste also entered the atmosphere irretrievably, warming up the planet like a blanket. Thinking of our economy and the environmental problems that we’ve created in this way gives us a way to conceive of a solution. If the majority of our problems come from waste, why not create a model that designs out that waste, why not take a cue from the environment, which doesn’t have a waste problem, and find ways to cycle waste back into the economy.
The Circular Economy
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines the circular economy as one that is restorative and regenerative by design. Unlike the take-make-waste approach of the linear economy, the circular economy would mimic the closed-loop of nature. In nature there is no waste, in a circular economy, the raw materials and products we use work their way around closed loops, remaining in use as long as possible.
The circular economy is a collection of strategies, including reduce, reuse, and recycle, while also emphasizing economic ideas of renting rather than owning, which together should reshape the global economy to eliminate waste. The circular economy doesn’t aim to end growth, it aims to decouple growth from the consumption of finite resources.
The circular economy is based on three principles - (1) design out waste and pollution, (2) keep products and materials in use, and (3) regenerate natural systems. The circular economy encourages a world where waste and pollution are never created in the first place, where materials are kept in use, rather than used up, and where our natural resources and food and agricultural systems are actively regenerated instead of degraded. Much of our current agricultural system depletes nutrients from the soil, which means chemical fertilizers are needed, which create waste to make and to use. A circular economy would encourage natural, regenerative practices to replenish soil nutrients, instead of unnatural, chemical ones, ultimately positively impacting the environment and creating a healthy and just food system along the way.
One representation of the Circular Economy, including the emphasis on reuse and repair before recycling. Image Source: PBL
The new economy would create a closed-loop system for both biological and technical materials. Think of biological materials as our world’s renewable/regenerative resources, such as food and plant materials, sunlight and water, while technical materials are made from extracted resources and can’t be easily regenerated. These are often materials that end up in our technological repertoires, such as phones and cookware. Biological materials are materials that can safely reenter the environment after being used. They will biodegrade over time, returning nutrients to the environment.
Technical materials cannot safely reenter the environment. These materials will need to continuously cycle through the system so that their value can be captured and recaptured over time. While recycling is an important component of a circular economy, there’s a much greater emphasis on maintaining and prolonging a technical product’s lifespan, reusing and redistributing the technology, and finally refurbishing/remanufacturing the product to like-new condition. Recycling is the process of reducing a product all the way back to its basic original form, which loses material in the process and requires more energy, making it the area of last resort for keeping materials flowing in the circular economy.
Finally, there’s a question of access versus ownership in the circular economy. Biological materials, like food, are consumed, but you can’t necessarily say the same thing about a television. A television is used, not consumed. This is an important distinction when thinking about the circular economy because it allows us to redefine our relationships to certain objects, making them more easily circular. For example, high-end technology, like televisions and dishwashers, which are not consumed but used, could be rented, instead of owned making them more easily replaceable and keeping them in the economy instead of throwing them away at the end of their life.
Now that we’ve covered the basics of what a circular economy is, the distinctions it makes, and how it works, we can begin to think about some of the benefits of a circular system.
Benefits of the Circular Economy
The circular economy intersects with all sectors of our society, including the natural world. It would be a total transformation of how businesses and governments are run, how we impact the environment, lead to higher quality jobs and a higher standard of living for individuals, and would ultimately lead to a more just and equitable society.
How the circular economy would benefit the environment is somewhat obvious from its premise: no more waste. No more waste means no more pollution, no more garbage, no more food waste. Energy to run the economy would come from renewables, and biological materials would be reintroduced to the natural world through means of composting and other decomposition processes, ultimately positively affecting our soil, groundwater, and freshwater ecosystems. Additionally, healthy soil and an agricultural system that doesn’t rely on chemical fertilizers and pesticides would only increase the health of individuals in our society (both through consumption and protections for agricultural workers who would no longer be exposed to those toxins) and lead to a more just and equitable food system overall.
There would also be no waste of technical materials, as they are constantly recirculated in the economy, which means they won’t litter our streets or end up piling up in landfills. We would need to extract way less raw material, which conserves those resources and protects different ecosystems. The benefits to our environment and to fighting climate change are potentially limitless when you consider the strain we place on these natural systems in our current model.
But the benefits don’t end with the environment, which is why the circular economy is a particularly powerful solution. Businesses and our economies would see wide-ranging benefits, as well as workers and individuals. A circular economy would allow continued growth without relying on extractive systems. Businesses would benefit from a reduction in the cost to produce things as they would be reusing valuable resources to keep their products healthy for longer. Both businesses and individuals would benefit from different rental models as customers would spend way less for these products and businesses would increase their earning potential due to the increased life span of their products. This system would lead to better paying, more specialized jobs, and workers would be protected from toxic and hazardous work environments.
Ultimately, the transition to a circular economy would benefit everyone. It has potential to create more equitable and just communities as countries of every size start to invest in circular. In fact, Rwanda has become a leader in the transition to a circular economy, with their emphasis on green and circular growth. We’ll continue talking about the circular economy over the next few blogs as we look at more of the details of the system and how it would work.