Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Last month, we took our time machine to the World Circular Economy Forum in Helsinki and asked 8 very brave volunteers to take a trip to 2050 and report back on what they found. In this episode we share the highlights from the trip and discuss in detail what we learned. Self cleaning clothes, soil health, vegetarianism, and yes – it looks like incineration will be out of the picture too. Strap in!
Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth (Chelsea Green, 2017) is an interesting book that goes in the right direction in the sense that it promotes a circular economy, but it leaves you with the impression that it missed that extra step that would have lead it to define the goal in the right way. Bridging the gap between standard economics and biophysical economics is still far away.
As Christian Arnsperger suggests, to retrieve the idea of circularity requires a second concept, that of sufficiency, of “enough”. Without that, it is at best a way of postponing the inevitable crash, and at worst a way of giving false credibility to the growthist delusion. So the idea of resource cycling loops needs combining with the radical reduction of consumption, long product durability, re-use and repair.
The emissions prizes of both a renewable economy and a circular economy are huge.
The University of the District of Columbia is leading the charge in transforming the food system in a city challenged with high levels of poverty, obesity, and population growth.
The regenerative city applies ecological principles to urban redevelopment to make the city environmentally viable. It should make the city socially viable as well.
When you ring Pocheco, a company that makes 2 billion envelopes a year in their factory close to Lille in France, the holding message describes Pocheco as "the first ecolonomic factory in the world".
You don’t have to look too long or too hard to realize that the tech sector is in the midst of a fast paced, ongoing evolution.
There is need for a new level of nuance — a local circular economy — one, in which materials, ideas and feedback flow cyclically and locally.
This is the story of how a simple idea forever changed my life, as well as the lives of many others.
Is eco-business leading us to ecological sustainability?
It seems pretty obvious that recycling, reusing, and repurposing materials we no longer need makes a lot more sense than burning or burying them, not just from an environmental, but an economic perspective.
