The Circular Economy And How It Works

Aug 10, 2022
1 min read

What is the circular economy?

The circular economy is founded on three design-driven principles:

• Reduce waste and pollution
• Keep products and materials in use
• Restore the natural environment

It is supported by a shift to renewable energy and resources. A circular economy dissociates the use of limited resources from economic activity. It is a robust structure that benefits society, the economy, and the environment.

Circular economy vs linear economy

A more detailed way to describe the circular economy, would be a concept that deals with an ideal structure for production and consumption. One that focuses on sharing, renting, reusing, repairing, and recycling used things for as long as possible as this extends the lifespan of things.

Alongside this, it refers to minimising waste. When a product reaches the end of its useful life, its components are, whenever possible, preserved within the economy. These can be productively applied repeatedly, adding more value. Essentially, repurposes, reuses and recycle. The process simply being repeated over and over again.

The standard, linear economic model, which is built on a take-make-consume-throw-away cycle, is disregarded by its circular counterpart. This concept depends on inexpensive, readily available energy and materials that the world just doesn’t have.

Planned obsolescence, in which a product is made to have a short lifespan to entice customers to buy it again, is also a component of this model.

It’s how the circular economy promises to address its core principles that make it a sought after model, let’s have a look at these in more detail:

Reduce waste and pollution

A circular economy identifies and plans for the unfavourable economic activity effects that harm people's health and the environment. This includes waste generated structurally, such as traffic congestion, the emission of glasshouse gases and dangerous compounds, and contamination of the air, land, and water.

Keep products and materials in use

What if we could create an economy that utilised resources rather than depleted them? Activities that conserve value in the form of energy, labour, and materials are favoured by a circular economy. Keeping goods, parts, and materials moving through the economy, entails planning for durability, reusability, remanufacturing, and recycling.  By supporting a variety of uses for bio-based materials as they cycle between the economy and natural systems, circular systems make effective use of them.

Restore the natural environment

The circular economy begs the question: what if we could do more to help the environment than just protect it?

By returning essential nutrients to the soil to stimulate regeneration or employing renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, a circular economy minimises the use of non-renewable resources while preserving or enhancing renewable ones.

Why should we switch to a circular economy?

The demand for raw materials is increasing along with the global population. But there are only so many essential raw materials available to us. Due to limited resources, many countries also rely on outside nations for their basic commodities.

Additionally, the ecosystem is significantly impacted by the extraction and use of raw resources as it raises CO2 emissions and energy use. However, we can reduce CO2 emissions by using raw resources more wisely.

What are the benefits?

Businesses could save money while lowering their overall annual greenhouse gas emissions by using strategies like waste avoidance, eco-design, and reusability design. Currently, 45% of CO2 emissions come from the production of daily materials.

Developing a more circular economy might positively affect the environment, increase raw material supply security, promote competitiveness, encourage innovation, accelerate economic growth and generate jobs.

Additionally, consumers will receive more inventive and long-lasting items, improving their quality of life and long-term financial savings.

Business and political leaders alike are becoming more interested in the circular economy. The potential to gradually detach economic growth inputs from virgin resources, promote innovation, boost growth, and generate more stable employment captures their attention. Everyone in society will feel the effects of moving to a circular economy. Some of the potential macroeconomic advantages of moving to a circular economy are simply too good for most businesses to overlook.

Does the circular economy work?

The circular economy does not automatically or inevitably solve sustainability problems. Due to its complexity, circularity is challenging. For instance, effective communication, continuous material availability, and cooperation between unlikely partners are necessary for one company to reuse another's garbage.

The good news is that numerous organisations support fostering cooperation and group action. It’s not an impossible notion, but a complex one to first implement.

The circular economy brings about significant changes for businesses and other facets of society. The concepts of minimising purchases, reusing things, and recycling in the absence of other wasteful options must be wholly embraced by consumers. Additionally, there needs to be a cultural shift in how resource management systems are created, as well as how alliances and networks are formed.

There is good news, though, across industries, work is already being done. For example, the lifespan of your phone is even evolving. People may soon stop needing to upgrade to a new phone every year or two and discarding the previous model (or leave it in a drawer somewhere). Inventors are tapping into their sustainable side by creating modular phones that could be fixed at home and are reimagining their products as a service that offers hardware, software, and customer care in exchange for the usage of the phone. This is the start of a long list of creative thinking required to move towards a viable future.

Why now?

Our economy's existing structure favours the linear production and consumption model. However, with resources depleting and sustainability growing in popularity, this system is showing signs of weakness. To expedite the transition to a circular economy, we must capitalise on this favourable alignment of economic, technological, and societal variables. The issue we now confront is mainstreaming the circular economy and scaling it up. Circularity infringes on the linear economy and has advanced past the proof of concept stage.

Even by purchasing recycled toilet paper here at icare, you could be helping society take one step closer to a circular economy. Moving away from a linear approach has many benefits, but most of all, it will help protect our planet and its finite resources.