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

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?

Here's my updated research summary, after the preparatory year and reviews with my university and funders. The good news is that, fundamentally, the intent hasn't changed, in fact it's been reinforced in many discussions with experts. Now I'm moving into the second year and starting the research itself.

Summary:?The project explores a uniquely cross-sectoral view of the resource flows associated with consumer products including food. Despite its apparent complexity, this may expose a simpler and more effective path to the Circular Economy (CE), and sustainability more generally, by making greater use of biological systems. This will be researched by firstly assessing a hypothetical “More Biological Circular Economy” and secondly testing decision processes which could realise this system in practice. The research will thus provide new information which could accelerate implementation of the CE. Potential impacts include improved soil health, climate change mitigation and adaptation, food and water security, reduced pollution, and easier implementation of sanitation.

Context:?The CE is defined as an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. It represents the opposite of (or antidote to) the take-make-dispose linear economy created since the industrial revolution, which today constitutes over 90% of the global economy. The CE sustains a) flows of renewable resources, eg renewable energy, biological materials – the biological cycle; and b) stocks of finite resources in cycles of re-use, eg metals, fossil materials – the technical cycle.??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 aligning the economy to Cradle to Cradle’s principle, fully utilising biological solutions?

Several major organisations and initiatives broaden consideration of biological systems beyond individual sectors, but none cover the potential complete cycle, from (regenerative) agriculture, to the appropriate use of biological materials in multiple food and consumer goods products, reaching consumers, then on into waste infrastructure, and finally returning nutrients to agriculture. Arguably this has led to the economy missing the opportunity for a) greater scale of biological waste collection and processing, b) greater awareness and adoption of biological solutions by producers, citizens and farmers. This represents a decision-making failure, since individual sectors’ chosen systems do not combine to create an effective overall system, and sometimes struggle to function in themselves. This results in multiple waste/pollution problems (plastic, water contamination from human waste and agriculture, carbon emissions), plus depleted soil vulnerable to climate change.

Research Questions:?Identify how to expand the use of biological systems within the CE by assessing…

Q1: the environmental consequences?(nutrient and carbon flows, land use), by carrying out a material flow analysis in two locations (provisionally UK and Kenya).

Why? This research explores a hypothetical “More Biological Circular Economy” which includes specific changes favouring biological solutions in product and packaging design, waste infrastructure, and agricultural practices.?This raises basic questions about mass flows (eg nutrient supply to agriculture) and net environmental effect (soil health, carbon emissions, land use). Preliminary calculation of these will demonstrate whether the hypothesis is worth further exploration.

Q2: how decisions can be made?to realise this, by framing CE as part of a socio-technical system and testing potential decision processes with actors in the same two locations.

Why? Multiple studies indicate that circular flows of the type envisaged here are prevented less by technology limitations than by enabling conditions (the political economy, markets, regulation, skills, and culture), and, in that complex context, by the need to make congruent decisions across multiple organisations and sectors.