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What happens to resource efficiency, recycling and waste management in a world where disownership is becoming the new normal?

As much as it may seem that the nuts and bolts of resource and waste management is about sorting machinery, storage, bins and collection systems, it is really ultimately about people.
We know that if people are to use resources mindfully, to manage them well, and to both demand and correctly use appropriate end of life systems, then we need to design systems that they are easy and convenient to use.

There are two ‘muscles’ that can be flexed in relation to resource and waste management – the Circular Economy muscle, and the Access Economy muscle. A lot of muscle-building effort has gone into the former, and the latter is a muscle we’ve only just discovered we can build.

Graeme wrote:The Circular Economy meets The Access Economy

What happens to resource efficiency, recycling and waste management in a world where disownership is becoming the new normal?

As much as it may seem that the nuts and bolts of resource and waste management is about sorting machinery, storage, bins and collection systems, it is really ultimately about people.
We know that if people are to use resources mindfully, to manage them well, and to both demand and correctly use appropriate end of life systems, then we need to design systems that they are easy and convenient to use.

There are two ‘muscles’ that can be flexed in relation to resource and waste management – the Circular Economy muscle, and the Access Economy muscle. A lot of muscle-building effort has gone into the former, and the latter is a muscle we’ve only just discovered we can build.

resilience

Set to uncover the next generation of UK entrepreneurs, experts and disruptive innovators needed to enable businesses to adopt a circular economy approach, Resource (http://www.resource-event.com) is calling for innovative small companies and start-ups to join its Launch Pad initiative.

The Launch Pad has 10 subsidised spots for circular economy businesses and enablers to pitch their technologies, processes, platforms, service or offering to over 11,000* professionals looking to secure future materials sources and develop a model for profit in a circular economy.

Already confirmed on the Launch pad at the world's leading event for the circular economy are WARPit and Bag:ReBorn. WARPit are the developers of a resource reuse network allowing staff to share (give away or loan) surplus physical resources within their organisation, and between organisations.

WARPit Founder Daniel O'Connor said: "As a company helping the public and private sector move towards zero waste, investing in The Launch Pad at Resource was a no-brainer for us. As a young business set up just three years ago we do not have the marketing reach of larger companies, so the Launch Pad will enable us to have a presence in front of thousands of circular economy players under one roof."

Also taking part are Bag:ReBorn, a specialist packaging design company motivated by reuse and prevention. Designed to extend the life-cycle of two of the most short-lived plastic products on the planet; Bag Re:Born is an innovative waste/resource collection sack that is cleverly disguised as a reusable shopping bag.

ralfy wrote:Profit leads to a non-circular economy.

Graeme wrote:As far as I can tell, profit is not precluded from definition.

Due to changing demographics, the health and social care system in the UK could become one of the largest sectors of the economy over the next 50 years. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (pdf), health spending will rise from 6.8% of GDP in 2016-17 to 9.1% of GDP in 2061-62.

A big part of this system, the National Health Service (NHS) is one of the largest organisations in the world, with two million staff catering to a population of 52 million. The delivery of its services has a significant impact on the environment. The NHS, for example, is responsible for approximately 25% of all public sector greenhouse gas emissions in England.

There are a number of reasons for growing engagement with the sustainability agenda, including increasingly stringent legislation and targets for costs savings. Healthcare waste has been included as one of the eight priorities in the waste prevention plan for England and the NHS is expected to have achieved efficiency savings of £15–20bn over 2011–14.

Under the government’s Climate Change Act, NHS organisations have a commitment to meet a 10% reduction in carbon emissions by 2015 from a 1990 baseline. They are also expected to hit the mandatory governmental targets for emission reductions of 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. They are mandated to include sustainability and climate change in their annual reporting to Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts and the Department of Health.

Tackling these environmental issues is a huge and complex task but improvement can realise significant financial, social and environmental dividends. The issue is how stakeholders can work together to make these initiatives work better.

When Paul Capel wanted to buy some new towels for his home he couldn’t find any products that met his high environmental and ethical standards. Inspired by cradle to cradle pioneers Michael Braungart and William McDonough, and by the work of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation on the circular economy, Capel was looking for goods that would be good for both people and the planet.

“I knew there were companies out there making good stuff but I was frustrated that there wasn’t an easy way to buy these things,” he said. He and business partner Brendan Rowan decided to set up an online store to sell goods that support the circular economy. The result is Cradle to Cradle Marketplace, which sells only Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certified products – that is, products that have been designed with their entire lifecycle in mind.

The start-up venture has the approval of MBDC, the company set up by Braungart and McDonough to provide certification. C2C-certified products all go through rigorous tests for material health (that they have no negative impact on humans or the environment), material reuse, renewable energy use and carbon management, water stewardship and social fairness.

It is at present the only company focused solely on supporting the circular economy by bringing C2C products to the public. Capel explains: “It was the unavailability of products at a customer level that motivated me to set up the C2C Marketplace. There are already over 200 companies that have had products C2C-certified and a lot of work is being done at corporate and business-to-business level.

“There are lots of everyday items that are C2C certified, like towels, bathroom tiles, clothes, even toilet paper, but until now it has been difficult for customers to even know about these products, let alone buy them.

ralfy wrote:Profit leads to a non-circular economy.

The circular economy is a generic term for an industrial economy that is, by design or intention, restorative and in which material flows are of two types, biological nutrients, designed to reenter the biosphere safely, and technical nutrients, which are designed to circulate at high quality without entering the biosphere.

Scope

The term encompasses more than the production and consumption of goods and services, including a shift from fossil fuels to the use of renewable energy, and the role of diversity as a characteristic of resilient and productive systems. It includes discussion of the role of money and finance as part of the wider debate, and some of its pioneers have called for a revamp of economic performance measurement tools.[1]

SIX PRINCIPLES TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM

Circle Economy is all about changing systems. Thinking, producing, funding, selling, consuming, rewarding, sharing, etc. It all can change for the better. From linear to circular. From old to new. From me to we. Here are the six guiding principles we use to make it happen:

All materials are cycled infinitely in either technical or biological cycles
All energy is derived from renewable or otherwise sustainable sources
Human activities support ecosystems and the rebuilding of natural capital
Human activities support a healthy and cohesive society and culture
Human activities support human health and happiness
Resources are used to generate value (financial and other forms)

Pops wrote:You guys are too much, stuck in a little rut worn deep by fossil fuel blinded dogma, LOL.

Fossil fueled extraction has created the non-circular economy. A renewable, circular economy is not a goal, it's a forgone conclusion. G. is trying to convince us it is gonna be great (just like OF2 is still recycling Chamber of Commerce press releases to make us ignore our lying eyes and believe everything is great now)


The origin of the word "profit" is latin: from pro- ‘on behalf of’ + facere- ‘do’:
Profit in merely excess work - excess "doing"
Capitalism is the industrialization of doing
Modern capitalism is fossil fueled, brute force, industrialized doing.

Profit is not eternal, not a god. Someone buys a biscuit, shirt, app, house with their (or someone elses) excess work profit but sooner or later those things lose their value, they wear out, get used up and the "profit" evaporates. Capitalism is the treadmill of collecting other's excess work profit before it vanishes or in the case of the last couple hundred years, collecting on the excess work of fossil fuels.

When the huge excess of fossil fueled work declines, the rate of extractive, industrialized doing will fall, and with it will go most excess profit. Unfortunately for those alive then, the highly mechanical, FF leveraged extraction will have long since consumed any manually extractable resources. In order to maintain any semblance of "modern" tech they'll have no choice but to recycle.

What will be left when the music stops is a renewable, recycled ("circular"), mostly rentier and mercantile economy. Industrial capitalism, socialism and pretty well any other modern, fossil fueled -ism will be long since relegated to fairy tale status.

Says me anyway, LOL
.

Graeme wrote:Pops, I'm not trying to convince you that everything will be great (see the RE and economic growth thread). However, I hope that you will agree that a circular economy is better than a linear one. The trouble is I can't tell you the details because I don't know what they are! Hence the thread. Here's the wiki definition:

The circular economy is a generic term for an industrial economy that is, by design or intention, restorative and in which material flows are of two types, biological nutrients, designed to reenter the biosphere safely, and technical nutrients, which are designed to circulate at high quality without entering the biosphere.

Scope

The term encompasses more than the production and consumption of goods and services, including a shift from fossil fuels to the use of renewable energy, and the role of diversity as a characteristic of resilient and productive systems. It includes discussion of the role of money and finance as part of the wider debate, and some of its pioneers have called for a revamp of economic performance measurement tools.[1]

Notice that the term profit is not mentioned in the definition. Hence it would seem that it is allowable. There's are lots of resources online which I cannot review. Here's another:

SIX PRINCIPLES TO CHANGE THE SYSTEM

Circle Economy is all about changing systems. Thinking, producing, funding, selling, consuming, rewarding, sharing, etc. It all can change for the better. From linear to circular. From old to new. From me to we. Here are the six guiding principles we use to make it happen:

All materials are cycled infinitely in either technical or biological cycles
All energy is derived from renewable or otherwise sustainable sources
Human activities support ecosystems and the rebuilding of natural capital
Human activities support a healthy and cohesive society and culture
Human activities support human health and happiness
Resources are used to generate value (financial and other forms)

In the end, educated professionals are in the world are here to solve problems and make it a better place for future generations. I cannot solve the world's problems on an Internet site! But collectively, we can.

ralfy wrote:The need for profit and growth are seen in generation of value.

ralfy wrote:From what I know, rentier and mercantile economies are part of capitalism and involve profits.

Graeme wrote:Pops, I'm not trying to convince you that everything will be great (see the RE and economic growth thread). However, I hope that you will agree that a circular economy is better than a linear one. The trouble is I can't tell you the details because I don't know what they are!

Pops wrote:LOL, not sure what that means,Ralfy, it looks like a string of buzzwords.

Let's parse:

Profit is not a "need" it is just another word for surplus. In fact profit is that amount of work that is in excess of need, lately accelerated by fossil fuels.

Growth is not a "need" it is an effect. Lately it is the result of FF'ed population increase and energy surplus creating new things faster than old things wear out.

Value doesn't need growth or profit, just work. If I grow a carrot that carrot has value to me when I eat it. If I get value greater than the work I put in I have a profit. Enough profit and I have "growth."

I think I see a pattern, "work" is the thing always left out in these discussions, so we not only put the profit and growth cart before the work-horse, we pretend the horse isn't required. I suppose that is because Karl was a product of and fixated on the age of fossil fueled industrialisation. Hardly the go-to guy for post-hydrocarbon economics, LOL

ralfy wrote:From what I know, rentier and mercantile economies are part of capitalism and involve profits.

Sure, we agree, they profit from personal property, the definition of capitalism. What will end is FF'ed, industrial capitalism.

Pops wrote:

ralfy wrote:The need for profit and growth are seen in generation of value.

LOL, not sure what that means,Ralfy, it looks like a string of buzzwords.

Let's parse:

Profit is not a "need" it is just another word for surplus. In fact profit is that amount of work that is in excess of need, lately accelerated by fossil fuels.

Growth is not a "need" it is an effect. Lately it is the result of FF'ed population increase and energy surplus creating new things faster than old things wear out.

Value doesn't need growth or profit, just work. If I grow a carrot that carrot has value to me when I eat it. If I get value greater than the work I put in I have a profit. Enough profit and I have "growth."

I think I see a pattern, "work" is the thing always left out in these discussions, so we not only put the profit and growth cart before the work-horse, we pretend the horse isn't required. I suppose that is because Karl was a product of and fixated on the age of fossil fueled industrialisation. Hardly the go-to guy for post-hydrocarbon economics, LOL

ralfy wrote:From what I know, rentier and mercantile economies are part of capitalism and involve profits.

Sure, we agree, they profit from personal property, the definition of capitalism. What will end is FF'ed, industrial capitalism.

Graeme wrote:Read my previous post carefully.