TOWARDS THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY Opportunities for the consumer goods sector
Ellen MacArthur Foundation
In January 2012, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched a report on the business and economic rationale for a circular economy. Given the complexity
of the topic, it offered an introduction to an alternative to the linear ‘take – make – dispose’ model of consumption. The report showed that this linear model is facing competition from a pattern of resource deployment that is circular by design: it creates much more value from each unit of resource by recovering
and regenerating products and materials at the end of each service life. More speci cally, it demonstrated that designing and using durable goods, such as cars and vans, washing machines, and mobile telephones, in accordance with circular principles offers materials savings in Europe that could be worth USD 380 billion in an initial transition period and up to USD 630 billion with full adoption.
This year, the Foundation has turned its focus to ‘fast-moving’ consumer goods, products that typically have a lower unit cost, are bought more often, and have
a much shorter service life than durable goods. Fast-moving consumer goods currently account for 35 per cent of material inputs into the economy, a signi cant part of total consumer spending on tangible goods, and 75 per cent of municipal waste. Importantly, the consumer goods sector absorbs more than 90 per cent of our agricultural output—possibly our most embattled resource in the future.
If we are to move to a circular economy, it is therefore crucial to test how it applies to the consumer goods sector.
Chapter 1
Examining the success and limits of linear consumption and the power of the circular economy concept to break through the linear ‘dead end’.
Chapter 2
Discussing how the principles of the circular economy apply to consumer goods—within both the biological and the technical spheres.
Chapter 3
Investigating how circular businesses can extract more value than the linear economy in three parts of the consumer goods industry: making use
of food waste and food processing by-products, reducing the material impact of apparel without reducing consumer choice, and getting to grips with beverage packaging.
Chapter 4
Describing the potential economic payoff of a rapid scale-up of circular business models in the consumer goods sector.
Chapter 5
Proposing concrete steps for participants in the consumer goods industry and for the public sector to bring the circular economy into the mainstream.
of the topic, it offered an introduction to an alternative to the linear ‘take – make – dispose’ model of consumption. The report showed that this linear model is facing competition from a pattern of resource deployment that is circular by design: it creates much more value from each unit of resource by recovering
and regenerating products and materials at the end of each service life. More speci cally, it demonstrated that designing and using durable goods, such as cars and vans, washing machines, and mobile telephones, in accordance with circular principles offers materials savings in Europe that could be worth USD 380 billion in an initial transition period and up to USD 630 billion with full adoption.
This year, the Foundation has turned its focus to ‘fast-moving’ consumer goods, products that typically have a lower unit cost, are bought more often, and have
a much shorter service life than durable goods. Fast-moving consumer goods currently account for 35 per cent of material inputs into the economy, a signi cant part of total consumer spending on tangible goods, and 75 per cent of municipal waste. Importantly, the consumer goods sector absorbs more than 90 per cent of our agricultural output—possibly our most embattled resource in the future.
If we are to move to a circular economy, it is therefore crucial to test how it applies to the consumer goods sector.
Chapter 1
Examining the success and limits of linear consumption and the power of the circular economy concept to break through the linear ‘dead end’.
Chapter 2
Discussing how the principles of the circular economy apply to consumer goods—within both the biological and the technical spheres.
Chapter 3
Investigating how circular businesses can extract more value than the linear economy in three parts of the consumer goods industry: making use
of food waste and food processing by-products, reducing the material impact of apparel without reducing consumer choice, and getting to grips with beverage packaging.
Chapter 4
Describing the potential economic payoff of a rapid scale-up of circular business models in the consumer goods sector.
Chapter 5
Proposing concrete steps for participants in the consumer goods industry and for the public sector to bring the circular economy into the mainstream.
