Circular Economy & Donut

Details: Written by: Glenn and Rick; Category: Circular Economy & the Donut; Hits: 13

Since the full lockdown of COVID-19 in March 2020 in Curaçao, a bottom-up movement has emerged, called “Taskforce Donut Economy” (now officially known as Curaçao Doughnut Economy). This movement is inspired by the world's first city donut that Kate Raworth made for Amsterdam. The purpose of Curaçao Doughnut economy is to create the world's first island doughnut and become a thriving nation. Doughnut Economics Juan-Carlos Goilo Sept 2020 The economy of Curaçao is in times of major changes. Financial services, the oil refinery, tourism, trade and logistics formed the stable pillars of the island's economy a few years ago. But right now these pillars are staggering in a sustainable direction in search of support. There are no conceivable scenarios in which petroleum refining will continue to exist for a long time. Political instability in Venezuela has for some time caused various government agencies to miss out on port and refinery activities. According to the Central Bank of Curaçao and St. Maarten, the economy has shrunk by 2% or more in the past three years in a row. In the summer of 2019, the Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the unemployment level at 21.5% (of which highly skilled job seekers was a large group), illustrating that the knowledge economy has not yet started. And as of March 2020, COVID-19 has gradually crumbled the island's tourism and service industry to a limited existence. At the same time, COVID-19 has uncovered which sectors contain critical occupational groups to keep society going.

These developments make it clear that the economy needs to be viewed differently. Consider developing new jobs and the value of work itself; however, the focus of import and export products and services will shift. And to offer everyone a future perspective, progress is needed in valuing education and other collective learning systems. People need a right to exist and therefore also need security. And not unimportantly: Curaçao will have to work hard in the coming years on the implementation power of its local government, as well as trust within the Kingdom. Formal bodies on Curaçao, the other Caribbean islands and the Netherlands have produced various studies and policy documents in the past year, but where are the interfaces? How can new economic developments flourish? What is the framework with which the island will familiarly face the future? How is the island going to work in close cooperation with all parts of the Kingdom to strengthen its economy. In short, what's the bigger picture?
Opportunities in a more circular economy according to the principles of the Doughnut can help! There are enormous gains to be made in moving towards a circular economy.......read on https://doughnuteconomics.org/stories/curacao-doughnut-economy

Details: Written by: Glenn and Rick; Category: Circular Economy & the Donut; Hits: 18

In a world of finite resources and mounting environmental challenges, the traditional linear model of take-make-dispose is no longer viable. The circular economy offers a transformative approach that prioritizes the continual reduction, reuse, refurbishment, and recycling of products and materials. It thereby conserves precious resources in the face of increasing supply chain disruptions, resource scarcity, and volatility of resource prices. The shift to a circular economy also reduces the generation of waste and greenhouse gas emissions, making it an essential strategy in the fight against climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Besides increasing environmental resilience, the circular economy offers a systemic solutions framework with substantial economic and societal benefits such as job creation and innovation, increased competitiveness, enhanced resilience of businesses, cost savings as well as improved social equity and well-being by ensuring a just transition for all communities affected.

The global financial sector plays a pivotal role in scaling up finance for pollution-free and circular solutions, by funding innovative businesses that prioritize circular design, resource efficiency and waste reduction. Financial institutions can also leverage their influence to drive policy changes and industry standards that favour circularity. UNEP FI engages the financial sector and builds capacity to accelerate the transition to a circular economy, focusing on high impact sectors such as agri-food systems, buildings and construction, textiles or plastics. Our aim is to raise awareness and share knowledge on pollution-related financial risks and impacts and catalyze circular economy financing through global and regional initiatives, and research. UNEP FI also supports financial institutions in understanding and operationalising the nexus between circular economy, climate, nature, pollution and the social agenda and incorporating circular economy approaches in target setting and action plans.Get involved..... For all financial institutions.....Join the UNEP FI circular economy community of practice

This community of practice supports financial institutions in integrating circular principles into their strategies and business practices, to scale up finance for circular solutions and drive systemic change. Through practical support, expert insights and peer-to-peer learning, the sessions equip financial professionals with the tools and knowledge needed to manage risks and seize opportunities related to the circular transition. Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to learn more or get involved. If you are a UNEP FI member, access the sessions’ content here.....and read on, there's much more to explore https://www.unepfi.org/pollution-and-circular-economy/circular-economy/

Details: Written by: Glenn and Rick; Category: Circular Economy & the Donut; Hits: 110

Schools of thought that inspired the circular economy. Where did the idea of a circular economy come from? What schools of thought or ideas inspired the concept? The origins of circular economy thinking come from many places and have been refined and developed over the years. Here are some of those schools of thought that have inspired circular economy thinking.......

Cradle to Cradle.....German chemist Michael Braungart and American architect Bill McDonough, developed the Cradle to Cradle™ concept and certification process. This design philosophy considers all material involved in industrial and commercial processes to be nutrients, of which there are two main categories: technical and biological. The Cradle to Cradle framework focuses on design for effectiveness in terms of producing products with positive impact.

Cradle to Cradle’s three principles.......

1.Cradle to Cradle design takes inspiration from natural systems, where there is no concept of waste: everything is a resource for something else. Biological nutrients should be safely returned to the soil, while technical nutrients should be used again and again at high quality. 2.

2.The argument goes that natural systems thrive on current solar income and human systems could too. Renewable energy is clean (at the point of use), low-cost to operate, creates no emissions in use, and utilises abundant resources.

3. Finally, celebrate diversity: diversity builds resilience in natural systems, and can do so in human systems, too. Equally, no two places are the same: a diverse approach is often necessary to overcome the challenges and meet the opportunities offered by different geographies.

The Performance Economy......In his 1976 research report to the European Commission, Walter Stahel, architect and economist, sketched a vision of an economy in loops (or circular economy), The Potential for Substituting Manpower for Energy, co-authored with Genevieve Reday. The vision looked at its impact on job creation, economic competitiveness, resource savings, and waste prevention. Credited with having coined the expression “Cradle to Cradle” in the late 1970s, Stahel worked at developing a ‘closed loop’ approach to production processes and created the Product Life Institute in Geneva more than 25 years ago. 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 absorbed 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.

Biomimicry “Innovation inspired by nature” - Janine Benyus.The idea at the core of Biomimicry is that life has already solved most of the problems we are currently grappling with. To give some obvious examples: birds can fly with no need for fossil fuels, barnacles can adhere to underwater surfaces and have a tremendous ability to stay attached, insects outweigh humans yet cause no pollution or waste, leaves soak up sunlight and manage to efficiently and effectively transport water and nutrients through a dense network. Biomimicry holds that we can find solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s patterns and strategies. Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, defines her approach as “a new discipline that studies nature’s best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems”. Visit the Biomimicry Institute to learn more about biomimicry.

Industrial Ecology.....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 undesirable by-products. Industrial ecology adopts a systemic point of view, designing production processes so they perform as close to living systems as possible. This is achieved by considering local ecological constraints and looking at the global impact of processes from the outset. This framework is sometimes referred to as the ‘science of sustainability’, given its interdisciplinary nature. The principles of industrial ecology can also be applied in the services sector. With an emphasis on natural capital restoration, industrial ecology also focuses on social wellbeing.

Regenerative Design......In the US, John T. Lyle started developing ideas on regenerative design that could be applied to all systems, i.e., beyond agriculture, for which the concept of regeneration had already been formulated. Arguably, he laid the foundations of the circular economy framework, which developed and gained notoriety thanks to McDonough (who had studied with Lyle), Braungart and Stahel. Today, the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies offers courses on the subject......read on https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/schools-of-thought-that-inspired-the-circular-economy Read more about Walter Stahel’s thinking in his book: The Circular Economy – A User’s Guide.

Details: Written by: Glenn and Rick; Category: Circular Economy & the Donut; Hits: 57

Circular economy solutions are needed to safeguard biodiversity and solve the climate crisis. Join us in creating a fair transition to a society in which we maintain the value of what we produce through smarter design and shifting from owning products to using services.

More than just a big idea – how extended reality tech can enable a circular economy. Taking inspiration from the role of gamification in driving environmental engagement, XR technologies have been harnessed to highlight the problems with, and symptoms of, our current extractive economy with the aim of inspiring action. Time Magazine’s ‘Inside the Amazon: The Dying Forest’ brings to life the environmentally and socially destructive realities of deforestation in an immersive journey. Meanwhile, the New York Times’ AR-powered storytelling tool enables users to visualise microscopic air pollution as floating digital fragments and, using location based sensors, compare their local levels with those of the world’s most polluted cities. The cumulative impacts of our linear economy could be similarly highlighted by XR to allow people to observe the gradual onset of ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ by simulating landscapes and ecosystems as they appeared twenty, thirty, or one hundred years ago. But neither nostalgia for a past less polluted – nor knowledge of the planet’s current trajectory – can alone transform awareness into action. XR technologies can be used to help to realise and scale the circular economy, in which waste and pollution are eliminated, products and materials are circulated, and nature is regenerated.

How XR can help visualise solutions for a circular economy...... Echoing the classic Walt Disney quote “if you can dream it, you can do it”, extended reality technologies allow us to construct any scenario from scratch. While painting the problems of a linear economy can prompt innovation, using XR to explore the solutions of a circular economy enables key audiences and actors to be engaged in a more active way. Already, XR is being used by some cities, institutions, and governments as a means of sharing solutions-based progress towards a circular economy. In the Netherlands, for example, the immersive VR experience ‘Virtual Gateway NL’ offers people the opportunity to connect, via a simple cardboard headset, with some of the country’s most forward-thinking solutions. Viewers can explore Dutch companies already incorporating circular economy principles, including Brightlands, a campus community pursuing innovation projects such as the use of bio-based materials like agro waste and lignocellulose (plant dry matter) as raw material inputs for new products.

Communicating the backstory and benefits of initiatives already underway helps to raise the profile of the circular economy in action and encourage similar actions......read on https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/tech-enablers-series/part-1

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Circular construction could be a huge boon for climate—and jobs. In a new study, the researchers tallied up the substantial economic and ecological benefits of taking buildings apart piece by piece rather than bulldozing them.Anthropecine Sarah DeWeerdt October 15, 2024 A circular construction industry could prevent substantial greenhouse gas emissions and unlock up to $3 billion of economic growth for New York State, researchers from Cornell University write in a new white paper. Construction, renovation, and demolition of buildings in New York generates 7.7 million tons of waste every year, and 58% of this material winds up buried in a landfill, burned, or shipped off to another country for disposal This linear construction industry also has a hefty climate footprint. Buildings and waste are the first and fourth largest sources of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in the state, together responsible for 43% of emissions.The social costs are high too: indiscriminate demolition releases toxic dust that poisons nearby air and waterways. Disposal of the resulting waste worsens the strain on the state’s overtaxed landfills, which taxpayers must pay to maintain for decades after their closure.

In contrast, “Circular construction aims to design and construct buildings as material banks for future construction, extend the life of today’s built environment, and activate the potential of existing structures at the end of their service lives as ‘anthropogenic mines’ of useful materials,” the researchers write.While 42% of construction and demolition debris is currently recycled, this mostly amounts to downcycling, turning an undifferentiated mass of mixed materials into low-value products like aggregate and landfill cover. Just 0.4% of building debris is currently reused in new construction.

Deconstruction—taking buildings apart piece by piece rather than indiscriminately bulldozing them—could enable at least 90% of building materials to be reused or recycled, the researchers say.Deconstruction can reclaim valuable building materials ranging from lumber and steel to windows and trim, and even kitchen cabinetry and bathroom fixtures. This painstaking work is more labor-intensive than demolition, so it creates more jobs—including entry-level positions that could help people get started in skilled building trades. https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2024/10/circular-construction-could-be-a-huge-boon-for-climate-and-jobs/

Curaçao Doughnut Economy

Circular Economy offers a Transformative Approach that prioritizes the Continual Reduction, Reuse, Refurbishment, and Recycling of products and materials.

Schools of Thought that Inspired the Circular Economy. Where did the idea of a circular economy come from?

Circular Economy Solutions are needed to Safeguard Biodiversity and Solve the Climate Crisis.

Circular Construction could be a Huge Boon for Climate—and Jobs.

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