Going round in circles

How often are matters viewed as ‘either/or’ rather than ‘both/and’? The former tends to lead to disagreement and discord while the latter can provide the basis for more productive dialogue. As mediators will know, looking for synergies between things that might at first appear to be contradictory can provide a more creative perspective while also stimulating a more conducive way of considering trade offs that may well exist.

The economy and the environment may well be a case in point - it seems to be increasingly the case in some quarters that promoting a healthy and sustainable environment is seen to be at odds with having a strong economy. This perspective sees trade offs between one or the other forcing hard choices between the two. While there will no doubt be some difficult decisions to make, particularly if a very short time horizon is used, there are more creative ways forward.

Using the concept of a circular economy, which moves away from the  traditional buy/use/dispose linear model to a reduce/reuse/renew/recycle approach, is a case in point. On the face of it this is all about generating a more healthy environment, which it is, but it also have a significant economic pay offs, for example: more resilient supply chains, lower costs, higher productivity, reduced risk, more product and process innovation, new market opportunities, additional investment etc. In many respects it is down to how things are framed, much of what is involved in a more circular approach could be termed ‘good business sense’.

The need for more circular approaches to how society produces, distributes and exchanges goods and services is becoming ever more pressing. Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. It has moved from late December in the early 70s to late July according to the latest estimate. More circular economic processes are central to reversing this trend.

We need to find new more circular ways of generating the standard of living and quality of life we aspire to, particularly if less developed places are to fulfil their potential. There are plenty of examples across many industries and places of companies, public agencies and NGOs at all levels working together to design and develop a systemic circular approach to economic development.

Businesses are increasingly developing more circular processes, such as retaining product ownership and maintenance while providing a service to customers using the product, leading to longer lasting products and designing in recycling upfront to reduce end of life costs and increase reuse. At the same time policy makers are exploring the most appropriate mix of regulation, incentives and taxation to ensure that sufficient attention is given to  the social costs (such as waste) and benefits (such as R&D) that might be overlooked in purely private decision making by consumers and producers.

A more circular economy shouldn’t be viewed simply as an environmental initiative, it will be essential to achieving economic progress within tightening limits of the natural world. We can waste time in fruitless argument about what comes first, a strong economy or a healthy environment, or we can focus our energy on creatively looking for more ways to achieve something which is genuinely sustainable. This will be the only way of getting anywhere near to addressing the contradiction inherent in the quote about madness and economists made famous by David Attenborough.