Circular economy would benefit our environment, but it's also smart economics

It is mankind’s best chance of establishing sustainable patterns of production and consumption

It is mankind’s best chance of establishing sustainable patterns of production and consumption

Lately, it is becoming more and more obvious that we must move away from our linear economic model to a more circular pattern, where waste becomes a thing of the past. The idea is to keep a given resource circulating for as long as possible. That means designing products, processes and services to optimize the use of resources, so that when something reaches the end of its useful life, we re-use, repair, or remanufacture it for another use. Or alternatively recycle the materials it contains and re-inject them into the economy elsewhere. Circularity is also needed in the energy, transport and construction sector, but most importantly it must become our natural way of thinking.

Circular economy could help nations achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set on Sept. 2015 in the UN’s summit in New York. The EU, the world's largest donor of development aid, will invest € 1.3 billion specifically for environment and climate-related global public goods and challenges by 2020, including € 154 million on forests and € 81 million on water, in order to enable the transition to a more circular economy.

Source: United Nations Environment Program