Today, the world also needs a paradigm shift on economy system. But this time it is the prevailing economic model that must be transformed. (1) By 2030, the global middle class will total nearly five billion people, all of whom will expect the same kinds of opportunities and comforts that wealthy populations have long enjoyed. This will put increasing strain on the environment and deplete the world’s stock of resources.
(2) The problem is that the world has long maintained a myopic focus on producing and consuming goods as cheaply as possible, thus leading to a result as a linear economy based on the rapid use, disposal, and replacement of goods. Sustaining the current model would require unlimited, easily accessible resources and infinite space for waste — something that clearly is not possible. (3) Indeed, the consequences of our disposable economy — skyrocketing CO2 emissions, unmanageable waste streams, and the increasing difficulty of extracting resources, to name a few, are already apparent. To find a sustainable alternative, one need only look to nature, where nothing is wasted. Forests, for example, are completely efficient systems, with species’ lifecycles occurring in perfect harmony with the seasons. This underpins levels of resilience and longevity that economic systems should strive to emulate. (4) Just as ecosystems reuse everything in an efficient and purposeful cycle, a “circular” economic system would ensure that products were designed to be part of a value network, within which the reuse and refurbishment of products, components, and materials would ensure the continual re-exploitation of resources.
Of course, building a circular economy would require a fundamental restructuring of global value chains. Instead of selling products, businesses would retain ownership, selling the use of the goods they make as a service. (5) Selling a product’s benefits instead of the product itself would create a powerful incentive for the producers to design for longevity, repeated reuse and eventual recycling, which would enable them to optimize their use of resource.
