Circular economy : it’s time to grow up !

Let’s get it right!

Until recently most people never heard about circular economy, and the different consultants and experts spend a lot of time explaining the principles of circular economy to an ever growing audience. Special thanks here to the Ellen MacArthur foundation, who largely contributed to the large dissemination of the message. People are now familiar with the continuous loops for both technical and biological materials.

( source: LIFE and the circular Economy, published by the European commission in 2017)

But as time passes by, I do see more and more publications and advertising under the label of a circular economy which are simple waste management projects without any ambition to be really continuously circular. We have to understand that trying to close the circle only once (if possible at all) corresponds to the traditional recycling / downcycling thinking, while in a truly circular economy we are looping materials continuously. In order to achieve this we have to maintain the quality of the materials throughout their transformation steps.

This is NOT about being perfect, but about defining the right set of goals and taking the right intermediate steps on the way towards a circular economy! In my view, it is of critical importance to insist on that difference and to point out if the ambitions of a project are not circular.

Jeannot Schroeder