There is a world of opportunity to rethink and redesign the way we make and use stuff. Designing waste out of the system will help protect and restore a durable use of the resources on Earth and decouple economic growth from resource constraints.
#Circular Economy
PROBLEM
The world’s current linear growth model is highly dependent on finite resources, exposing it to resource volatility, limited gains in productivity, and huge loss of value through waste.
If nothing is done to address the current situation, total demand for constrained resource stocks (like biomass, fossil energy, and many metals) is expected to reach 130 billion tons by 2050. That’s up from 50 billion in 2014. Even with an optimistic forecast for technological innovation, the economy is unlikely to be able to produce more than 80 billion tons, leaving a shortfall of around 40 billion tons by 2050. Such shortages will expose countries and companies to significant risks.
Applying circular economy principles we can catalyse this change, achieve a real system shift, and open a new era of growth and development, decoupled from resource constraints. Carbon dioxide emissions would halve by 2030, relative to today’s levels. Primary material consumption measured by car and construction materials, real estate land, synthetic fertiliser, pesticides, agricultural water use, fuels, and non-renewable electricity could drop 32% by 2030 and 53% by 2050, compared with today. (Dame Ellen MacArthur, Founder Ellen MacArthur Foundation)
BUSINESS MODELS
Ecodesign
- The Humble Co (bamboo toothbrushes, available in 20,000 stores around the world)
- Ecover (ecologically sound cleaning products, world’s largest cleaning products company by sales )
Waste collection
- Instituto Muda (10,000 T since 2007, Brazil)
- Bancalimentos (Colombia)
- Waste concern (100 T per day, Bangladesh)
Recycling
- Savco Millers (Plastic, Uganda)
- Unifi (10B plastic bottles since 2009, US)
- Terracycle (1B hard to recycle items every quarter, US)
Product life extension / Upcycling
- Ebay (Global)
- CoreCentric (1,4 million electronic parts and products/year, US)
- Green Collect (1 million office items since 2005, US)
- Poshmark (25 million clothes uploaded since 2011, US)
- Foodmaven (220,000 kg of food saved in 2018, US)
- Renewal Workshop (90,000 kg of apparel from 2016 to 2019, US – B2B)
- Vestiaire Collective (4000 fashion items uploaded per day, Europe/Asia)
- Too Good To Go (2.5 million meals since 2015, Europe)
- Olio (400.000 food items since 2015, US)
- Looptworks (1T of bags since 2009, US)
- Rede Asta (12.000 corporate items in 2017, Brazil)
SUCCESS STORIES
Waste Concern
Waste Concern collects organic waste and send it to food processing centers to turn it into compost for horticulture and agriculture. Waste Concern makes money by selling compost such as fertilizers to farmers and enterprises. The firm employs impoverished citizens to collect organic waste. This involves creation of several small-scale enterprises in different neighbourhoods, which acts as part of a de-centralized waste management model. Their operations include house-to-house waste collection, composting of the collected waste by sending them to the composting plants and marketing of the compost and recyclable materials to interested buyers and businesses.
Too Good To Go
Too Good To Go is an app which uses a geo-targeted map to show users the restaurants closest to them with leftover food available for collection at special time, at great price. Too Good To Go sells food that they buy from the stores at a great price. Stores make extra cash on food that would have otherwise cost them to throw out. Customers win by getting a great value meal – collecting tasty food at a reduced price.
There is the option for the user to donate £1 alongside his purchase, which will go towards providing a meal to someone who needs it.
What YOU can do
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