Quantifying the circular economy: Global circularity is low and has gone into reverse
by Laxmi Haigh
Circle Economy’s investigation into circularity paints a bleak picture, but the power of countries can be harnessed to change the game. It’s difficult to put a figure on global circularity, but not impossible. In fact, the world is 8.6% circular, finds Netherlands-based impact organisation Circle Economy’s latest report. Launched during The World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in January, the Circularity Gap Report (CGR) 2020 presents hard truths; circularity is not just low, but it’s gone into reverse”. In the initial CGR launched in 2018, global circularity stood at 9.1%. As well as present the core findings of the groundbreaking report, this article seeks to further investigate this quantification of circularity and asks, how important is it for us to quantify our journey to a circular economy?
Read More
A circular economy for all: The case for integrating the informal waste sector in developing countries
by Tze Ni Yeoh
For decades, the informal sector has played a significant role in the recovery of post-consumer waste in developing countries. Using Minh Khai village of Vietnam as a centrepiece, Tze Ni Yeoh discusses why it is crucial for policymakers to integrate the informal sector as countries strive towards sustainable, equitable development. Integration of the informal sector not only brings about socio-economic gains to the typically low-income individuals and micro-businesses that are involved in informal recycling but is an economic opportunity to produce secondary raw material from waste.
This article, concurrently published at the Kennedy School Review, proposes several policy interventions which can act as a catalyst to integrate and improve the informal waste sector, from collectors to secondary raw material manufacturers.
Read More
Overcoming economic barriers to a circular system
by Johanna Schiele
Circular Economy, cradle-to-cradle, beyond take-make-waste, the new material flow model… There are many names for the idea that our current linear resource-extraction and -use model might be less than perfect – but have any of them really caught on?
Faced with rapidly progressing environmental degradation, we must think about regenerative rather than consumptive modes of living on this planet. Whilst we are not directly “running out of materials […] our economy depends on the productivity […] of biological systems that start to default.” The concept of a Circular Economy is thus compelling, and has achieved some popularity with policy makers, businesses and consumers.
But as intuitive as the idea sounds, examples of its application remain scarce. Successful, large-scale circular systems are rare and academic research remains fragmented. Of course, systemic change is difficult to accomplish and hugely path dependent. Understanding what currently stands in the way of faster change is therefore key. In what follows, we aim to explore some of the challenges the Circular Economy is facing today. Ultimately, these barriers can be translated into areas for policy, companies and individuals to tackle.
Read More
IDEAL-CITIES: A Trustworthy and Sustainable Framework for Circular Smart Cities
by Giorgos Dimitriou & Vasilis Katos
One of the main challenges of a modern smart city is to bring people together, making them ambassadors of a sustainable, restorative and regenerative way of life and expediting the shift to the Circular Economy model. A city achieving a smart city status cannot be automatically considered sustainable nor inclusive. A Sentient City achieves sustainability of the resources and inclusiveness for the people.
This paper from IDEAL CITIES, a European Union-funded project, examines how smart city technologies can promote a data-driven circular economy model. Under this framework, a city's finite resources as well as citizens will form the pool of intelligent assets in order to contribute to high utilization through crowdsourcing and real-time decision making and planning. For instance, by helping the visually impaired citizens navigate and productively enjoy their city, services becoming enabled to respond in real-time and in the most cost-effective manner by identifying and repurposing resources with a minimum effort. A data-driven sentient city will know when it has achieved its goals because it will at the same time measure one of the most important performance indicators: citizen’s happiness.
Read More
Creating A Circular Economy with Less Plastic Waste - Implications and Gaps in the International Trade of Plastic Waste
by Quinn Liu
The Basel Convention was amended in 2019 to include plastic waste as hazardous wastes with restrictions for international trade. The amendment will make global trade in plastic waste more transparent and better regulated, whilst also ensuring that its management is safer for human health and the environment. These international trade policy changes signal a transition towards a more resource efficient and circular economy, which can occur at various levels along the product value chain such as second-hand goods, end-of-life products, secondary materials or waste, as well as trade in related services. In this paper, Quinn Liu highlights gaps and opportunities in updating the existing regulatory framework and re-designing the global supply chain to transition to a sustainable circular economy.
Read More
Recapturing the Value of the World’s Trash
by Henrique Pacini and Carrie Snyder
Waste is fundamental to the way our societies work. Moreover, such residues move across borders. So how can we design an economy that closes the loop, produces less waste, and makes sure the materials and energy that are currently discarded are able flow back into productive economic cycles? In this article for the Weatherhead Centre, Henrique Pacini and Carrie Snyder argue that this will require more than technology - and that this goal depends on a confluence of factors, including cooperation among and within countries on things such as taxation / subsidy reforms and multilateral standards which reinforce the governance of materials throughout their lifecycles.
Read More
The ACCTS could be a catalyst for transitioning to a circular economy
by Giridharan Ramasubramanian
The recently announced initiative, the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS), provides a fresh opportunity to use trade agreements to tackle the challenges of climate change and sustainable development. In this piece, Giridharan Ramasubramnian argues that if it wishes to be an influential and effective international grouping, the ACCTS should facilitate the transition to a more circular economy among member countries and successfully shape discussions at the nexus between trade, climate and sustainable development in other international forums and institutions. As a potential institutional pathfinder and a living agreement, the ACCTS could expand in scope by bringing in issues related to the circular economy: the removal of barriers to trade in secondary materials, goods and waste, and the development of guidelines for eco-design and recyclability standards. It could also expand in membership by bringing on board countries that are thinking seriously of transitioning to a circular economy. Thus, the ACCTS has a unique potential to act as a catalyst to a circular economy within member countries’ societies and an institutional catalyst that will drive discussions in other international institutions on the topic of circular economy to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Read More
Policy Options for an Arctic Plastic Pollution Action Plan
by Katie Segal
Nearly 80 percent of all the plastic waste the world has ever produced is sitting in landfills or polluting the environment, and an estimated 8 million tons of this plastic finds its way to the ocean each year. Despite its remote location and relatively small population, the Arctic region is not immune from the plague of plastic pollution infecting oceans around the world.
Read More
