Unlocking the Circular Economy - Realising the potential of the Biological Cycle -

Here's the latest summary of my research. For those who've seen this before, I'm continuing with the same underlying intent, but developed a different methodology. Comments, contacts, or references are always welcome!

Nature is the original Circular Economy, a net-zero system where waste literally doesn’t exist. What if we could run our economy closer to nature’s model?

The project explores resource flows associated with consumer products including food. Its holistic view may expose a simpler, more effective path to the Circular Economy (CE), and sustainability more generally, by increasing use of biological systems. The research will compare examples of decision-making, and supporting analysis, concerning biological resources. This will yield new insights on how different analyses mobilise action, accelerating implementation of the CE, and leading to healthier soil, climate change mitigation and adaptation, food and water security, reduced pollution, and easier implementation of sanitation.

The CE is defined as an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. It represents the opposite of the take-make-dispose linear economy created since the industrial revolution, which today constitutes over 90% of the global economy. The CE comprises two cycles:

a) flows of renewable resources, e.g. renewable energy, biological materials – the biological cycle;

b) stocks of finite resources in cycles of re-use, e.g. metals, fossil materials – the technical cycle.?

(The biological cycle as represented here could be considered as the human application and adaptation of the natural lifecycles of organisms, to provide food and other products needed by humans).

The book Cradle to Cradle (McDonough & Braungart) argues that these two cycles should be kept separate, each used, by design, for the most appropriate applications. The authors assert that the modern economy has departed from this principle, using technical materials in applications with short use lives (eg packaging) and/or intentional mixing with biological materials (eg nappies).??What might be the effect of better aligning the use of resources in the economy to Cradle to Cradle’s principles?

Some initiatives broaden consideration of biological systems beyond individual sectors, but few if any cover the complete cycle, from agriculture, to use of biological materials in food and consumer goods products, reaching consumers, then into waste infrastructure, finally returning nutrients to agriculture. Within this vast overall system, each actor typically exhibits ”bounded rationality,” unable to design for??the system as a whole. This research explores these design decisions, and their supporting analysis.

This?has led to the economy missing opportunities – in a kind of vicious spiral:

-????????Individual “bounded” decisions may favour less circular, arguably less beneficial, solutions, e.g.:?

o???a product designer disregards bio-degradable packaging materials because there is no waste system to process them after use

o???a farmer can access organic nutrients only within the farm, not returned from a city, so continues to use synthetic fertiliser, while the city needs a sanitation system but lacks revenues to fund it

o???a city builds incinerators because plastic waste is hard to segregate and suffers contamination from biological waste (and meanwhile processing of biological waste is contaminated with plastic)

-????????Such decisions combine to limit the scale and scope of biological waste collection and processing.

-????????All this leads to limited awareness, acceptance, and adoption of biological solutions by producers, citizens and farmers.

-????????And all this reinforces continuing bounded decisions, perpetuating linear solutions.

Research Question:

What are the characteristics of the processes and methodologies used to analyse biological resource stocks and flows, in multiple regional-scale studies, in the context of the Circular Economy (CE)? Specifically what characterises a) the scope, objectives, and key assumptions leading to such analysis; b) the analysis methodology used; and c) the conclusions, recommendations, communication, and follow-up action arising from the analysis?

This will be researched by a comparative study of c 30 examples of organisations (or sets of organisations) making decisions about stocks and flows of biological resources, supported by various forms of analysis (or even, in some cases, without using analysis). The aim is to establish what types of analysis are effective in mobilising what types of action, and how decisions might be made which accelerate appropriate use of biological systems.