Concise Research Outline

Unlocking the Circular Economy - Realising the potential of the Biological Cycle by evaluating a cross-sectoral approach and testing new approaches for the related business and government decisions.

The Circular Economy is a vision for more effective, more sustainable, use of resources, benefitting both the economy and the environment. Contrasting with the linear economy developed since the industrial revolution, the Circular Economy keeps finite resources (like metals, fossil materials) in cycles of re-use, while making optimal use of renewable resources (renewable energy, biological materials).

The hypothesis driving this research is that, not only would the economy benefit from being more circular, but that there should be greater use of biological materials. Imagine a world where one biological waste system captures all the food waste and food packaging, all the nappies and sanitary products, used paper and textiles, plus human waste, processes all this safely, and generates valuable renewable energy and nutrients which can be returned to the land to build healthier soil (requiring less fertiliser and less irrigation). That would potentially be an opportunity for renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, reduced plastic waste, better provision of sanitation, and better water security.

All these are priorities for cities and businesses today, typically tackled with a wide range of separate initiatives, sometimes competing or even conflicting. Is there an opportunity for a single initiative which, by achieving fundamentally more effective resource use, delivers all of these multiple benefits?

The challenge with this vision is that, appealing as the multi-dimensional benefits might be, it requires an equally multi-dimensional approach to realise it. Product designs need to change to substitute biological materials for plastics; waste infrastructure needs to change to capture this wide range of biological flows; agricultural practices need to change to accommodate this big-scale recycling of nutrients. This requires different decision-making from all actors – public sector, private sector, even individual citizens – taking a longer-term, broader-scope view than is the norm in the linear economy.

This leads to a research programme in two stages:

1. In 2021, a preliminary high-level analysis will be published to demonstrate the overall feasibility and benefit of this approach. This will be based on analysis of the carbon cycle, and will consider other aspects including land use, climate change mitigation and adaptation, flows of key soil nutrients, and reduction of fertiliser use.
2. Starting in late 2021 and running until 2024, the main body of research will then focus on the decision-making approaches which could realise this vision. How can both public and private sector organisations, acting in a congruent way, adopt the new systems which would realise a more circular, more biological economy? This will be explored using case studies, ideally from locations with differing income levels and levels of infrastructure development. Decision-making approaches will be developed and tested, allowing the case study locations to make beneficial decisions for their own situation, while creating learning which can be more widely applied.

In the second phase, the type of questions to be asked would include:

• How to make decisions which bridge multiple established sectors and departments, optimal for the whole system but not necessarily seen that way from within each sector?
• How to dovetail the design thinking – between private sector innovation in products and packaging, and public sector regulation and provision of infrastructure?
• How to make decisions which move away from well-established technologies, without taking unacceptable risks?
• How to make decisions which are better in the long term, but carry more up-front cost?
• How to restore knowledge of, and confidence in, nature and biology, in an urbanised society where people live surrounded by concrete and plastic?

Details of the case study approach have not yet been developed, and this can be done in collaboration with partner organisations and the cities and businesses themselves.