Driving a Circular Economy: The Circularity GAP report of 2023
This month, The Circularity Gap report of 2023 was published in collaboration with Deloitte. This report being the 6th annual report of its kind, is looking at how close we are to a true circular economy on a global scale compared to years past. A circular economy could not help to fulfill people’s needs, but could do so with just 70% of the materials we currently use, making human impact more sustainable and safer for our planet. This report highlights that while a circular economy is ideal, we are currently nowhere near that goal. In fact, this report outlines that we are down to only 7.2% circular compared to the 9.1% circular that was seen in the first ever report of 2018. The key take aways from this report are as follows:
The global economy is now only 7.2% circular; and it’s getting worse year on year—driven by rising material extraction and use.
While this metric is complicated to track and understand, ultimately what this report has found is that circularity decreases with the increase of material extraction. The more materials we use that are from virgin sources, the less circular we truly are. This is partnered with the fact that more materials are going into core needs such as roads and houses, leaving less material to be cycled through the economy. To achieve higher circularity, the world needs to decrease dependence and usage of virgin materials.
With a circular economy, we can fulfil people’s needs* with just 70% of the materials we currently use—within the safe limits of the planet.
Currently, the world seems to operate on a take-make-waste economy. With this current model, our consumption and use of materials is breaking five or the nine planetary boundaries that measure environmental health. The impacts of breaking these boundaries are massive and critical to adjust. Based on this report, if a truly circular economy was adopted, then we would see a one-third reduction of material extraction needs and we could reverse the overshoot of planetary boundaries. The most impactful ways to do this would be to lower the demand for high volume materials and eliminating fossil fuels.
Use less, use longer, use again and make clean.
The core principles of a circular economy are use less, use longer, use again and make clean. These principles are the root of the solutions presented throughout the circularity GAP report, and are truly the root to increasing out percentage of circularity. All 16 solutions presented come back to using less, using longer, using again, and/or making clean again.
Circular solutions for only four global systems will address the lion’s share of environmental pressures.
Directly from the report, “unleashing just 16 transformational circular solutions across four key systems—Food systems, the Built environment, Manufactured goods and consumables, and Mobility and transport—can reverse the current overshoot of five of the nine key planetary boundaries, thereby maintaining thriving ecosystems for water, land and air, and limiting the global temperature rise to within 2-degrees.” It does mention that this report does not consider political, economic, or social dynamics and says that this is a snapshot of what our world could look like if we made some big changes.
Each country has a different starting point and will progress at a different pace towards the shared global goal of reversing environmental overshoot, while fulfilling people’s needs.
It’s important to note, that in practice each country will have different speeds in which they will reach circularity. Grouping countries into three groups, they then outline what each of these groups should focus on based on their impact affects circularity.
Shift Countries - Highest income, and highest consumers of materials. These countries should focus on reducing overconsumption and lightening their impact on the environment
Grow Countries - Rapidly industrializing and have a growing middle class. These countries should focus on new ways to stabilize and optimize their material consumption to maximize societal wellbeing.
Build Countries - House a majority of the world’s population but use very little materials. These countries should focus on building infrastructure and the provision of wellbeing, even if it does mean a slight increase of their material footprint.
To reverse the overshoot and achieve wellbeing within safe limits, purpose-driven collaboration between the public and private sectors is essential—only then can we scale the transition to a circular economy.
Essentially, this report outlines that public and private sector must work together to be successful in a circular economy. This expands to policy as well. Noting that policy along with the entire economic system needs to change gears from our current norm, and embrace long-term vision and interests over short term rewards.
A circular economy offers solutions on how to reduce, regenerate and redistribute vital materials use, for both the planet and all its living beings.
The final piece of this report then focuses on creating a shared vision that both business leaders and policy makers can use to shift to a more circular economy. The three principles outlined are as follows:
Reduce: from efficiency to sufficiency, resilience and adaptiveness.
Regenerate: from extraction to regeneration.
Redistribute: from accumulation to distribution
To read the full report, or view the executive summary that highlights each of the above points in more detail, you can download it here.
Sources:
https://assets.website-files.com/5e185aa4d27bcf348400ed82/63c9411c827cc7b22366eade_CGR%202023%20-%20Report.pdf
