Items on the Circular Economy.

Citations

Why Waste-Free Production is a Myth

1.

"When you add everything up, closed loop production models are often not really better than the old kind. The problem, as the environmental scientist Jessie Henshaw explains it, is that although circular economy metrics cover resource flows in day-to-day production, they omit a wide variety of other costs that all businessses incur: staff commuting to work; services such as roads, water or trash collection, provided to the business, but paid for by taxes; or the myriad sub-sub-contractors in a modern, hyper-connected business. In his search for a more accurate picture of the economy’s aggregate environmental impacts, Henshaw divided global GDP by global resource us. The results were sobering. In round numbers, one dollar of GDP corresponds to a pound of C02 put in the atmosphere."

- John Thackara (via [1])

2.

"A circular economy in which parts are measured, but not wholes, is neither wastefree nor sustainable. In a growth-based economy, circular systems can co-exist with increasing damage to living systems. Material flows are a proxy indicator for environmental impact. For every increase in economic activity, more tonnes of virgin materials end up being extracted, processed and consumed. More economic growth means an increased environmental footprint. The multplication of money that accompanies economic growth necessarily expands the economy’s physical impacts on the earth. The key question is not how to reduce the waste of materials, but how to end the endless and ultimately destructive making of money."

- John Thackara

Key Articles

• How Circular is the Circular Economy. By Kris De Decker. Low-Tech Magazine,

here: Excellent summary critique of the limitations of the Circular Economy.

• Against wasted politics: A Critique of the Circular Economy. By Francisco Valenzuela and Steffen Böhm. Ephemera, volume 17(1): 23-60

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