Davos, where the World Economic Forum met last month
The meeting of countries talked about environmental policy, and how using a circular economy model could address “unnecessary resource losses”.
WhatsNewInBusiness reported on the discussion of the “different industrial model” at the conference in Davos in January, with the site noting that despite the average person not “hav[ing] come across [the concept] yet”, the circular economy has “gained sufficient traction in business, political and environmental circles to be the subject of a report released” at the meeting.
The circular economy has also become the focus of an initiative “supported by leading companies to encourage business to embrace its principles”, with an EU conference on environmental policy to take place later this year focusing on the circular economy’s potential, whilst China’s latest five-year plan includes an entire chapter devoted to “vigorously develop[ing] a circular economy”.
With the “cradle-to-cradle” idea of reusing and remanufacturing resources to save energy and money, the circular economy model “addresses […] unnecessary resource losses” through recycling and “much more”, with the design process for products focused on so that they can be reused, resold and repaired, as well as upgraded or made suitable for remanufacturing.
The report at the conference was launched by the Ellen McArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum (WEF), and considered the issue of “how to scale up the circular economy model” to national and international market size. The report writers and collaborators pointed out that the world economy, currently estimated at a size of $65 trillion (€47 trillion), could save $1 trillion (€727 trillion) immediately if it took up a circular economy model, with “potentially much more” savings in future.
The savings would come from waste reduction as well as “lower capital requirements for businesses”, with benefits including “reduced volatility in the price of inputs” as well as “greater innovation and job creation”. The site points out that remanufacturing, alongside recycling in Europe, “already employs more than one million people”, and whilst remanufacturing is “more labour-intensive”, profits are maintained due to “reduced waste and lower capital expenses”.
An initiative set up by the McArthur Foundation, Project Mainstream, was launched alongside the report at Davos, and is “designed to promote collaboration in pursuit of the circular economy”, with big brands including Unilever, Cisco, Philips and Renault part of the project. The site concluded that “a number of factors will help drive progress towards a circular economy”, with more expensive resources motivating businesses “to do more with less”.
It added that technologies such as 3D printing “offer the potential to reduce materials and energy use and wastage” through such innovations as “allowing products to be produced on demand”, and there is said to be “growing acceptance of economic models based on access rather than ownership”, with the chance of “job creation and innovation [alongside] a pathway to a resilient economic growth” coming as part of a circular economy model.