University of Cambridge

Examples of influences and effects realting to more sustainable consumption production.

Concept

What is a circular economy?

What is a circular economy?

Technical and biological cycles

The model distinguishes between technical and biological cycles. Consumption happens only in biological cycles, where food and biologically-based materials (such as cotton or wood) are designed to feed back into the system through processes like composting and anaerobic digestion. These cycles regenerate living systems, such as soil, which provide renewable resources for the economy. Technical cycles recover and restore products, components, and materials through strategies like reuse, repair, remanufacture or (in the last resort) recycling.

Origins of the circular economy concept

The notion of circularity has deep historical and philosophical origins. The idea of feedback, of cycles in real-world systems, is ancient and has echoes in various schools of philosophy. It enjoyed a revival in industrialised countries after World War II when the advent of computer-based studies of non-linear systems unambiguously revealed the complex, interrelated, and therefore unpredictable nature of the world we live in – more akin to a metabolism than a machine. With current advances, digital technology has the power to support the transition to a circular economy by radically increasing virtualisation, de-materialisation, transparency, and feedback-driven intelligence.

Circular economy schools of thought

The circular economy model synthesises several major schools of thought. They include the functional service economy (performance economy) of Walter Stahel; the Cradle to Cradle design philosophy of William McDonough and Michael Braungart; biomimicry as articulated by Janine Benyus; the industrial ecology of Reid Lifset and Thomas Graedel; natural capitalism by Amory and Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken; and the blue economy systems approach described by Gunter Pauli.

Cradle to Cradle

Nutrient Matabolisms are Consumption Products (Biological Nutrients) and Service Products are Technical Nutrients

Biological Nutrients,food, shampoo, detergent

Technical Nutrients, cars, furniture, textiles 

Performance economy

It pursues four main goals: product-life extension, long-life goods, reconditioning activities, and waste prevention. It also insists on the importance of selling services rather than products, an idea referred to as the ‘functional service economy’, now more widely subsumed into the notion of ‘performance economy’. Stahel argues that the circular economy should be considered a framework: as a generic notion, the circular economy draws on several more specific approaches that gravitate around a set of basic principles.

Industrial Ecology

“Industrial ecology is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems”. Focusing on connections between operators within the ‘industrial ecosystem’, this approach aims at creating closed-loop processes in which waste serves as an input, thus eliminating the notion of an undesirable by-product. Industrial ecology adopts a systemic point of view, designing production processes in accordance with local ecological constraints whilst looking at their global impact from the outset, and attempting to shape them so they perform as close to living systems as possible. This framework is sometimes referred to as the ‘science of sustainability’, given its interdisciplinary nature, and its principles can also be applied in the services sector. With an emphasis on natural capital restoration, industrial ecology also focuses on social wellbeing.

Natural Capitalism

The following four principles underpin natural capitalism:

• Radically increase the productivity of natural resources - Through radical changes to design, production and technology, natural resources can be made to last much longer than they currently do. The resulting savings in cost, capital investment and time will help to implement the other principles.
• Shift to biologically inspired production models and materials - Natural capitalism seeks to eliminate the concept of waste by modelling closed-loop production systems on nature’s designs where every output is either returned harmlessly to the ecosystem as a nutrient, or becomes an input for another manufacturing process.
• Move to a “service-and-flow” business model - Providing value as a continuous flow of services rather than the traditional sale-of-goods model aligns the interests of providers and customers in a way that rewards resource productivity.
• Reinvest in natural capital - As human needs expand and pressures on natural capital mount, the need to restore and regenerate natural resources increases.

Sustainable production is: 

The creation of goods and services using processes and systems that are: non-polluting; conserving energy and natural resources; economically viable; safe and healthy for workers, communities, and consumers; [and] socially and creatively rewarding for all working people. If production is sustainable, then the environment, employees, communities, and organisations all benefit. 

3 ways to meet future demand for products

Manufacturing

Sustainable manufacturing is about “developing technologies to transform materials without emission of greenhouse gases, use of non-renewable or toxic materials or generation of waste”(Brennan & Vecchi, 2015). The greatest potential for eco-efficiency often exists in the heavy industry sectors of steel and cement, the building and transport sectors, and in agriculture. Other important opportunities to increase the eco-efficiency of production include implementing industrial symbiosis and improving recycling rates (UNEP, 2015).

two strategies for sustainable manufacturing:

four areas of inquiry have furthered our understanding of the psychological drivers of PSBs:

Making Sustaianble lives easier a priority for governments business and society4 recommended points: