Circular economy is the way to meet the Paris goals
Economy & innovation — di Valentina Neri
Focusing on the circular economy is essential to comply with the Paris Agreement. Without it, we can get, at most, halfway there.
Circular economy is the way to meet the Paris goals
Focusing on the circular economy is essential to comply with the Paris Agreement. Without it, we can get, at most, halfway there.
With the Paris Agreement, 195 countries committed to limiting the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. It is estimated that, to stay within 1.5 degrees, emissions must be cut by 26 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030. But studies conducted for Unep (the United Nations Environment Programme) show that, even if all the states that took part in Cop21 kept their commitments, they would manage to get, at most, halfway there, cutting at most 11–13 billion tonnes. The path to covering the other half is called the circular economy. This is the conclusion of a report published by the consulting firm Ecofys together with Circle Economy.
What is the circular economy
It is often confused with waste recycling, but the circular economy is something far broader. Traditionally, the economy has been based on the principle of "produce, use, discard." But the facts have shown that this model is not sustainable, because the resources and energy available to us are limited and their prices are volatile. With the circular economy, products are designed from the outset with the need to repair, reuse or transform them in mind once they have exhausted their "first life." And consumers are no longer owners, but users who make use of objects only when they truly need them.
Is our world "circular"?
Every day, around 22 kilograms of raw materials are extracted per capita worldwide. Half of them cannot be recovered: these include, for example, the food we eat or the fossil fuels we burn. Then there are sand, gravel and limestone used for construction cement, which therefore remain "trapped" for decades. Finally, there are all those materials used to manufacture appliances, clothing, cars and detergents. All products with a short or medium life cycle belong to this third category and, if approached in the right way, could offer enormous scope for reuse. But what is the right way? The strategies available to us are numerous and by now highly advanced.
Rethinking industry, agriculture, construction and transport
There are four economic sectors that today account for 82 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions: industry, agriculture and forests, construction and transport. Choosing the circular economy means understanding, for each of them, what the right approach is.
In industry, the focus must be on regeneration: the used product is dismantled, every component is repaired and replaced, and it is reassembled, brought back to life as good as new.
In the agriculture and forestry sector, the focus must instead be on waste management, the reuse of by-products and the fight against food waste. Every year, according to the FAO, around one third of food produced for human consumption is thrown away, which in terms of emissions corresponds to 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2.
In construction, around 80 per cent of energy consumption is linked to materials. These must therefore be replaced with lower-impact alternatives that make it easy to change the intended use of a building, thereby extending its life cycle.
The transport sector is overwhelmingly dominated by cars: there are 1.2 billion of them in the world. Yet on average each car sits unused for 95 per cent of the time. The shift must therefore be from ownership to use, with everything staked on sharing models.