Episode 2 Linear economy and risks

Looking at the big-picture issues caused by our linear economy, and what that means for businesses large and small...Hello, and welcome to the Circular Economy podcast, where we find out how circular approaches make a better business (and a better world):  for you, your partners, and your customers. In Episode 1, I gave a quick intro to explain what the circular economy is and why it’s important.  We started to look at how it creates better products and services, and at the same time helps make a better world. Maybe you’re already trying to reduce your environmental impact, and you want to go further:  to find ways of being more sustainable and profitable!  The circular economy can help you do that, and strengthen your business in lots of ways. Episode 2 - show notes [01:48] In this Episode, we’ll dig a bit deeper into the way we do business now - our linear economy - and why that’s creating problems for business, society and for our living planet.  I’ll cover a few of the facts from the first episode, plus some additional information. Then we’ll look at the risks that emerge from those global issues, and how they might affect you.  Circular approaches can avoid or mitigate many of these risks, and in future episodes, we’ll be interviewing people who are using the circular economy to re-think the way we make products and design services.  I hope their stories will inspire you to use circular approaches to strengthen your own business. Global headwinds Let’s look quickly at some of the big-picture trends and drivers, many of which are keeping global business leaders awake at night, and that we’re only recently starting to understand better. We’ve described our current ways of doing business as a ‘waste’ system.  We create waste and emissions at every stage, polluting our air, atmosphere, soil and water. The Linear Economy - take, make, and waste This linear economy relies on using finite resources – metals, minerals, and fossil fuels.  It also relies on land and water – and we often forget that they are finite as well.  In dumping all that waste and pollution, we’re destroying the living systems we depend on, and often harming people as well.  When we discard the product, we waste all those resources – and we waste all the energy, labour and knowledge we invested in the product at every stage in the process. [03:29] In Episode 1, we covered some headline numbers, and I’ll quickly cover those again now.  We extract around 90 billion tons of natural resources, every year, to make what we consume.  That’s more than 12 tons for every person on the planet.  Based on current trends, that number is likely to double by 2050. We recycle very little.  Circle Economy produced a Circularity Gap report which says we recover less than 10 per cent of our resources to make them into new products.  [The European Union Material Flow report calculates EU recycling at around 12 per cent – 0.88 million tonnes recycled out of 7.5m tonnes of resources used each year]. We now know we are causing dangerous climate change by burning fossil fuels, using fertilizers and clearing forests, all of which creates Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.  After we’ve finished with the products and packaging, we discard them.  Often this means that we send it to landfill, incineration or we export it overseas (often to countries where materials can be recovered without onerous safety regulations).