The circular economy presents a vision of a future that functions within our planetary boundaries. Today’s goods become tomorrow’s resources, we design so that as little as possible becomes obsolete and traditional ideas of ownership give way to models based on leasing and sharing. Over the last year, Guardian Sustainable Business has been covering the journey of this vision.
We’ve learned a lot about coffee. We now know that coffee waste can be turned into a flour that makes gluten-free cookies, and that a special coating can be applied to paper coffee cups that means they can be recycled up to seven times.
We’ve learned that mushrooms, better known as the divisive vegetable often found on pizza, now also features in packaging, and that Disney World is making electricity from food waste for its theme parks and hotels.
We know that a transition to a circular economy is estimated to provide $1tn (£63.7bn) globally in annual savings by 2025, and that the UK’s remanufacturing market is valued at £2.4bn but has the potential to increase to £5.6bn.
We’ve heard about edible cups and yoghurt wrapped in coconut flavoured skin, and the Berlin store selling groceries without the packaging.
We’ve learned that some 475 installations, 10,000km of pipelines, 15 onshore terminals and 5,000 wells in the UK continental shelf – an area of the North Sea with large resources of hydrocarbons – will eventually need to be decommissioned, and have looked at the surfing companies designing more sustainably.
Lego’s senior director of environmental sustainability has said there are more than 90 Lego bricks for every person on the planet, while Renault claimed that one remanufactured car part uses 80% less energy, 88% less water and 92% fewer chemical products compared to a new part.
We’ve taken a look at 8 of the best sharing economy companies and explored why car-sharing is among the solutions for London’s bad air quality.
What have you learned?
Put your knowledge to the test and let us know you score.
Help us shape our coverage
In a recent GSB survey, readers identified the circular economy as a hot sustainability topic for 2015. Given the interest, we’d love to hear from you on what you’d like to see us cover over the coming months.
What are the topics you’re interested in and who are the people you’d like to hear from? What are your knowledge gaps and the areas of innovation that excite you? What would you like to see covered by experts in a live chat?
You can tweet your suggestions to @GuardianSustBiz using #GSBcircular, leave them below in the comments section, or email them to hannah.gould@theguardian.com
Read more like this:
- Berlin duo launch a supermarket with no packaging
- Disney World’s biogas facility: a model for converting food waste into energy
- Advertisement feature: Recycling: ‘the loop of last resort’ within a circular economy
The circular economy hub is funded by Philips. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled brought to you by. Find out more here.
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