09/19/2022 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/19/2022 09:25
More than 100 billion tons of resources enter the economy every year, ranging from metals, minerals, and fossil fuels to organic materials derived from plants and animals.1 Of this, just 8.6% gets recycled and used again.2 The utilization of resources has tripled since 1970 and could double again by 2050 if "business as usual" continues.3
In a circular economy, products are designed with goals of efficient resource use, extended usage life, and improved ability to repair or recycle and reuse material components. Pollution and waste are minimized, products and materials are used longer, and natural systems are better able to maintain health and regenerate. While some of the inherent design challenges are significant, the eventual reward is great: A circular economy approach presents potential for economic growth to be decoupled from ever-increasing natural resource use, including the related negative impacts on environmental and social systems.
Within the context of increasing resource constraints, global warming, and still-rising worldwide demand for goods, circular economy design principles and business structures offer immense opportunities for the creation of new processes, practices, and businesses with meaningful benefits. The Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy has identified 21 key solutions that offer potential to decrease resource extraction by 28% and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 39%.2
Circular economy model
The circular economy offers multiple intervention points
Sources: Putnam Investments, Ellen MacArthur Foundation
We view the circular economy as one of the most far-reaching frameworks for the development of sustainable solutions. To learn more, read our research paper, Toward a circular economy, which offers comprehensive analysis and discusses the topic in greater detail.
1 [Subscribers only] National Geographic, "Here's how a 'circular economy' could save the world," February 18, 2020.
2 The Circularity Gap Report, 2020
3 United Nations, Global Resources Outlook, 2019.
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