Circular Economy: global models needed
We’ve known for decades that we need to adopt and scale circular models. Where are they? What’s holding back progress?
The idea of the circular economy has well and truly arrived.
According to the latest reports, circular systems have the potential create at least an additional EUR 900 billion in economic value per year, reduce global municipal solid waste to less than 2 billion tonnes by 2050, and reduce enough annual greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to removing 1 billion cars off the road permanently.
We’re already seeing the economic value of circular activities.
Today, the global recycling industry is worth more than USD 60 billion. The worldwide revenue from second-life goods is over USD 339 billion and is forecasted to more than double by 2026. Even in its early stages, reuse solutions are creating over 200 times as many jobs as the landfill industry.
And yet, we are unable to make substantial progress in tackling issues of waste.
As it stands, the Global Plastics Treaty is at imminent risk of becoming a watered-down waste management treaty.
Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled globally. The annual electronic waste generated is already enough to encircle the equator. Every year, we continue generate enough municipal solid waste to stretch to the moon and back—and, at its current trajectory, waste is set to surge by over 68% to reach 4.5 billion metric tons by 2050.
World Bank (2018)
Waste is also catalysing a planetary crisis that fundamentally threatens our way of life.
Different countries have different priorities for circular solutions
Graphic from Circularity Gap Report (2024)
Earth is no longer a safe operating space for humanity, with six out of nine planetary boundaries already transgressed. According to the Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative (CGRI), in the latest circularity gap report, we know that the four global circular systems— nutrition, the built environment, manufactured goods, and transport & mobility—are a prerequisite to operate within planetary boundaries going forward. However, as countries are at radically different stages of development, there are growing calls for the need to create different pathways for countries to engage in an inclusive circular economy.
So how do we progress?
Here are 3 key takeaways that enjoy broad consensus amongst stakeholders on circularity:
1. We must move beyond recycling to redesign global production and consumption
The future of circularity is about tackling issues of overuse, over-production, non-circular systems / value chains. Our appetite for consumption continues to accelerate at alarming rates. In just the past five years, we have consumed 500 billion tonnes of materials — an amount that is nearly equal to what was consumed in the entire 20th century. Our rate of consumption is critically exceeding our ability to design and implement recycling & reuse solutions.
2. We need to align country localisation pathways with global circular systems
The rise of automation, coupled with the economic development across the world, means that localisation is coming. However, the pathways for localisation will look fundamentally different for each country. Advanced economies use six times more resources than low-income ones, yet the lifetime cost of plastic is ten times higher for low-income countries than it is for advanced ones. Different countries will have different priorities when building circular systems, and alignment between these systems and the global systems that already exist will be essential for success.
3. We will require coordination, both within and across countries, to effectively mobilise the resources and investment necessary to build a circular economy
Across the world, countries have launched strategic roadmaps towards circular economies that prioritize intragovernmental, multisectoral, and multi-stakeholder coordination for achieving success. Moreover, these roadmaps have emphasized the importance of generating investment both locally and internationally to fund circular economy projects. At a global level, countries of the Global South are working closer together in order to lobby for meaningful progress towards achieving an equitable and just Global Plastics Treaty. [JS1] Coordination will enable such interventions to complement each other thematically and avoid redundancy.
And yet, despite widespread consensus on these takeaways, these models still do not exist in practice and at scale.
Effectively, we are planning for solutions in the future when the concept of circularity remains an unrealized ideal. The widespread lack of political appetite to implement the changes necessary—particularly in reducing overall consumption as well as shifting models of production towards reuse—prevents the implementation of meaningful change. Equally, limited access (especially in developing countries) to the investment capital needed to unlock the innovation necessary to achieve localised solutions as well as the ever-growing competitiveness of plastic as raw material have curbed investor appetite to accelerate circular solutions.
There is a silver lining: transformative and circular models are emerging in visionary countries across the globe
Chile’s recent public commitment that 30% of all new public investment for recovery must target sustainability and circular economy projects will enable its private sector to gain access to the investment capital needed to design built environment solutions.
Peru’s clean production agreements (APLs) have already incentivized foreign direct investment and partnership into creating projects that align its industrial sector the global circular manufacturing goods system whilst boosting its economic development.
Rwanda’s ongoing circular food systems programme, in partnership with the IKEA Foundation, will work towards enabling the localisation of its food system whilst empowering SMEs to design and scale the specific circular solutions needed to address the local context.
These are just a few examples from a growing body of country-level case studies on the realistic actions towards a circular economy.
As first movers, the lessons learnt from these countries’ experiences will profoundly transform the ways in which we build sustainable and robust solutions for a global circular economy. How we respond to their experiences will ultimately determine the extent, and pace, to which we are able to safeguard our way of life on this planet.
For more information, check out the latest and most insightful global reports on circularity:
· The Circularity Gap Report 2024
· UNEP Global Waste Management Outlook 2024
