Dame Ellen MacArthur and her foundation colleagues visited the Bay Area, and I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop with them.
Workshop slogan: 'We are called to be architects of the future,
not its victims' [R.Buckminster Fuller]
Most people know Ellen as the fastest person ever to sail nonstop single-handed around the world in 71 days on her trimaran B&Q/Castorama back in 2005. Being out there with no sleep (she mentions the longest stretch of sleep on her trip was 3 hours max), where the closest humans around where the people in the manned space station above her, apparently had a lasting impact on her view on the topic of finite resources.
Translated into our world where
Ellen’s foundation drives the idea of ‘circular economies’.
The circular economy is a generic term for an industrial economy that is, by design or intention, restorative. Compared to using materials in our linear ‘take-make-dispose’ economy, the circular economy is much more than recycling. It looks at all the options across the chain to use ‘…as few resources as possible in the first place, keep resources in circulation for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them while in use, then recover and regenerate products at the end of service life’ [Aron Cramer, BSR]
When asked, Ellen instantly lists great existing circular economy examples and mindsets like
One thing is clear for Ellen. If we remain in our ‘business as usual’ mode, price volatility will continue to surge, alongside the probable inflation of key commodities.
Today the automotive industry consumes about 15% to 20% of the global steel production, in 2004 the price of steel rose 60% in one year and did not significantly decline until 2008. Without circular economics sudden exposure to price fluctuations is a permanent condition of doing businesses. Business leaders need to search for better ways to avoid these risks, and need to move to industrial models that decouple revenues from raw material input.
Recent research by the Ellen MacArthur foundation & McKinsey claims a $630 billion savings business opportunity in the European Union alone by moving to a circular economy. Other estimates predict that a transition to a circular economy is estimated to provide $1 trillion globally in annual savings by 2025. It contains solutions for recycling, re-manufacturing, take-back and reuse.
In our discussion I took 3 main take-aways for the path forward:
It is already a given to many industry experts that we have to rethink how we use materials and limited resources to mitigate risks from material price volatility and material supply.
The circular economy is a global economic model that aims to decouple economic growth and development from the consumption of finite resources. In a circular economy you keep products’ components and the materials within them at their highest value and utility at all times. More and more companies see tremendous opportunity in this model, allowing them to capture additional value from their products and materials, while hedging against price volatility and resource limitations.
Building the circular economy will take time and will not happen overnight, but do we have a choice ?
Me trying to explain to Ellen that men can sail too.....
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