The Circular Economy (B1-B2/v28642)

Through a change in perspective, we can re-design the way our world and our economy works – designing products that can be ‘made to be made again’ and powering the system with renewable energy.

Narrator:  Living systems have been around for a few billion years and will be around for many more. In the living world there’s no landfill instead materials flow. One species waste is another’s food. Energy is provided by the sun; things grow then die and nutrients return to the soil safely and it works. Yet as humans, we’ve adopted a linear approach; we take, we make, and we dispose. A new phone comes out, so we ditch the old one. Our washing machine packs up so we buy another. Each time we do this, we’re eating into a finite supply of resources and often producing toxic waste. It simply can’t work long term. So, what can? If we accept that the living world’s cyclical model works, can we change our way of thinking so that we too operate a circular economy?

Let’s start with the biological cycle. How can our waste build capital rather than reduce it? By rethinking and redesigning products and components and the packaging they come in, we can create safe and compostable materials that help grow more stuff. As they say in the movies, no resources have been lost in the making of this material. So, what about the washing machines, mobile phones, fridges? We know they don’t biodegrade. Here we’re talking about another sort of rethink – a way to cycle valuable metals, polymers and alloys so they maintain their quality and continue to be useful beyond the shelf-life of individual products.

What if the goods of today became the resources of tomorrow? It makes commercial sense. Instead of the throw away and replace culture, we’ve become used to, we’d adopt a return and renew one where products and components are designed to be disassembled and regenerated.

One solution may be to rethink the way we view ownership. What if we never actually owned our technologies, we simply licensed them from the manufacturers?

Now, let’s put these two cycles together. Imagine if we could design products to come back to their makers. Their technical materials being reused and their biological parts increasing agricultural value. And imagine that these products are made and transported using renewable energy? Here we have a model that builds prosperity long-term, and the good news is there are already companies out there who are beginning to adopt this way of working.

But the circular economy isn’t about one manufacturer changing one product, it’s about all the interconnecting companies that form our infrastructure and economy coming together. It’s about energy. It’s about rethinking the operating system itself. We have a fantastic opportunity to open new perspectives and new horizons instead of remaining trapped in the frustrations of the present. With creativity and innovation, we really can rethink and redesign our future.

1. Are you familiar with the concept of the circular economy?
2. Do you think it might be possible to design products and appliances in such a way that their parts could be reused?
3. What are some other ways that we might re-engineer the economy to be more in line with nature?

Video script and vocabulary