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Green Book is a new space dedicated to innovation, addressing prominent sustainable ways to produce and consume. Therefore, every month we will bring important insights into a circular economy; it is a topic we particularly care about and wish to raise its awareness.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a charity committed to creating a circular economy, defines it as an economic system designed to eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. It is a systems solution framework driven by design that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. As a result, it delivers better outcomes for people and the environment.
We have evidenced how unsustainable the well-known linear production and consumption patterns are. We make products from natural resources, then use them and eventually dispose of them as waste. Moreover, such linear patterns cause triple planetary crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. There are so many indicators of this all around us. However, one passage in Kate Raworth's prominent "Doughnut Economics" book puts it firmly in context. In 2017, she wrote that as we experienced the global average temperature rise by 0.8°C, we were heading for an increase of almost 4°C by 2100. The latter threatens the scale and intensity of floods, droughts, storms, and sea-level rise that humanity has never before witnessed. Furthermore, she pointed out that around 40% of the world's agricultural land was seriously degraded, and by 2025 two out of three people worldwide will live in water-stressed regions. Meanwhile, at that same time, over 80% of the world's fisheries were entirely or over-exploited. Every minute a refuse truck's worth of plastic is dumped into the ocean, meaning that at this rate, by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.
This overwhelmingly bad news resonates even more today. We are experiencing one of the hottest years ever, and populations across the globe have been devastated by unprecedented weather dynamics. So, what can we do? First, we must be more imaginative and move from linear to circular economy design. The good news is that we have seen extraordinary success stories by now. Such vital examples of innovation create value for people and the environment. They make both thrive. The even better news is that by now, many such pioneering stories have already paved the new way! Hence we can learn from them.
As the Ellen MacArthur Foundation informs, the circular economy entails two distinct cycles – the technical one concerning finite materials and the biological cycle of renewables. For each cycle, there are processes of circularity. Technical products and materials can be reused/redistributed, recycled, refurbished/remanufactured, and maintained/prolonged. Nutrients of the biodegradable biological products can instead return to Earth to regenerate nature. For example, Houdini, a sustainable outdoor clothing, changed how the clothes are produced. As a result, 100% of all the fabrics they use this season are recycled, recyclable, renewable, and biodegradable. Apeel, on the other hand, has developed an edible plant-based coating layer applied to fresh fruit and vegetable products. It mimics and enhances their natural defenses, making them last longer. In this way, Apeel eliminates single-use shrink-wrap plastic packaging while at the same time tackling food waste.
Each month, the Green Book will explore these exciting innovations in more detail around diverse areas of impact, such as biodiversity, built environment, cities, circular design, climate, fashion, finance, food, and plastics. What is your impact, and how circular is your business right now?
Article contributed by:
Ajlin Dizdarevic (www.ajlindizdarevic.com) - She is a management consultant, researcher, and entrepreneur, working with circular economy projects.
- Read the second Green Book article: "From degenerative to regenerative design"