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Page added on January 14, 2017
The ‘Circular Economy’ Is More Than Davos-Speak
The “circular economy” may have started off as a pie-in-the-sky concept, but in the last few years, it’s come into its own.
With the world population expected to balloon to nearly 10 billion in 2050, business leaders are increasingly embracing the idea that their products and processes need to be more resource-efficient. Traditionally the economy has followed a linear approach, where energy, food, and other resources are used and then go to waste. In a circular economy, the idea is that materials can be repeatedly reused in some way or another rather than ending up in a landfill.
For companies, that means designing modular goods that can be replaced in pieces when broken or outdated (ahem, smartphones). It means developing technology that can turn industrial waste gases like carbon monoxide into useful biofuels. It means reducing paper waste — a move that could potentially save them $1 billion in the process. At the end of the day, it’s not a question of how a product is disposed, but whether it needs to be disposed of at all.
Related: Davos Is Forcing Big Bank CEOs to Choose Earnings Over Skiing
Some of the individuals and organizations who have put this ethos into practice will be recognized in an awards ceremony Monday at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The annual awards program, known as The Circulars, is a collaboration between Accenture Strategy and the World Economic Forum, with Fortune as a media partner.
Seven awards will be given, including an award to an individual who has demonstrated “inspirational leadership” in the circular economy, and an award to a multinational that has demonstrated circular economy innovation. (Some of the big-name finalists in the latter category are Cisco, Patagonia, and Johnson Controls.)
This is the third year that the program has been in place. Last year’s winners included a company called Optoro that helps major U.S. retailers do more with their returned and damaged inventory, and Materials Marketplace, a cloud-based platform that tracks and exchanges large and medium-sized companies’ undervalued materials.
Applications for this year’s contest were open from June to September 2016. Last year, there were over 200 entries from 36 countries.
12 Comments on "The ‘Circular Economy’ Is More Than Davos-Speak"
Apneaman on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 3:06 pm
Army of staff descends on Davos to serve WEF super-rich
Amid sessions on inequality, hastily bussed-in hotel workers will pack five to a room on bunk beds to serve the super-rich and powerful delegates
“Hundreds of chambermaids, doormen and cocktail waiters have been flown to Davos to cater to every whim of world leaders, business executives and the super-rich who will descend next week on the Swiss Alps town for the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) celebration of capitalism.
While WEF guests, including Theresa May, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and South African president Jacob Zuma, will spend their nights in some of the world’s most luxurious hotel suites, the staff brought in to serve them will be sleeping up to five to a room in bunk beds.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/13/army-of-staff-descends-on-davos-to-serve-wef-super-rich
onlooker on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 3:17 pm
And they will be promising to eradicate so much poverty by so and so date. Like they routinely do every year. Meantime, the rich get richer and the poor poorer. I suggest when us who live in rich countries wake up tomorrow, we should be grateful that at least we are the more fortunate slaves on the plantation.
onlooker on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 3:21 pm
Oh and forgot to say they are mostly mainly there, to congratulate themselves for ushering in this circular economy and eradicating so much poverty etc. etc. Just like they did when they cosigned the worthless Paris Climate Treaty. Big accolades they gave themselves. Proud they are of themselves. Sorry love talking like Yoda.
Apneaman on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 3:22 pm
“ahem, smartphones”
21st century CRACK
Americans Look at Their Smartphones More Than 9 Billion Times Daily, Up 13 Percent From 2015
Deloitte survey findings indicate Americans dependence on mobile phones and digital multitasking continues to rise
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/americans-look-at-their-smartphones-more-than-9-billion-times-daily-up-13-percent-from-2015-300376692.html
BTW, there is no such thing as “multitasking” digital or otherwise in the societal mythological version. It’s really just a rationalization made up by dopamine junkies who are unable to control their E-addiction. Similar to the decades long repeated and debunked myth that “I drive better when I’ve been drinking”.
Multitasking: Switching costs
Subtle “switching” costs cut efficiency, raise risk.
What the research shows
“Doing more than one task at a time, especially more than one complex task, takes a toll on productivity. Although that shouldn’t surprise anyone who has talked on the phone while checking E-mail or talked on a cell phone while driving, the extent of the problem might come as a shock. Psychologists who study what happens to cognition (mental processes) when people try to perform more than one task at a time have found that the mind and brain were not designed for heavy-duty multitasking. Psychologists tend to liken the job to choreography or air-traffic control, noting that in these operations, as in others, mental overload can result in catastrophe.”
http://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask.aspx
The Human ability to self bullshit is infinite.
The distracted driving smartphone users have long eclipsed the number of maiming and killings of innocents there has ever been from drunk drivers. Can’t scapegoat citizen soccer moms with M.A.D.D. bumper stickers though can we?
Anonymous on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 3:43 pm
M.A.D.D = Mothers Against Distracted Driving?
peakyeast on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 7:28 pm
“Balloon to 10 billion”… Very well put indeed!
The thing about balloons is that it takes just a tiny prick and it bursts. – Even ripping itself apart into pieces.
This analogy is so much more accurate than the writer realized.
alain LE GARGASSON on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 7:56 pm
Recycling to infinity is not possible for several reasons:
· We always have a fire loss, example: case of recycling of beer cans, of the amount recovered only 95% is again available.
· There are thousands of metal alloys of steel with noble metals niobium, vanadium, tungsten etc, only two classifications in recycling, carbon steel and stainless steel. After melted they do not return in original use, they serve in construction as medium steel.
· Automotive industry, average of 10 years of life, in recycling, liquid emptying and melting in electric furnace, blending up to 10 alloys of steel, copper of the electric circuit, aluminum of the engine crankcase and burning of plastics.
· Dispersion use, metallic oxides used as dye in paints (walls, printed matter, plastics, cosmetics, fireworks … etc). The most emblematic case is titanium oxide, white universal colorant (paints, resins, cosmetics, toothpaste …) 95% finish in the dumps, rivers and seas. Nano technology precludes recycling like the silver used in socks to prevent stink feet. Cell phone with more than 40 different elements of mendeleiev table (nano elements).
· Natural wear: Today for example, on the streets the asphalt contains a greater concentration in platine or palladium than some mines, due the exhaust wear of the automobiles and copper and zinc of the tires.
· There is no substitute for copper as an electric conductor, nickel for stainless steels, tin for welding, tungsten for cutting metal parts, silver or platinum for chemical and electronic industry, phosphorus for agriculture … etc
Agriculture: totally disperse, diesel of 100 to 150 l per cultivated ha, limestone in the correction of the agricultural land, fertilizers (NPK -nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus), phytosanitary products (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides …) that will end in rivers and in the sea, as well as land due to erosion, between 1 and 4 tonnes per tonne of production.
· Renewable energy, wind turbine 5 MW with a base of 1000t steel and concrete, 250t steel mast, 3 blades of 50t of fiberglass, carbon fiber and plastic resin, motor with permanent magnets, steel alloy with neodymium . Photovoltaic panel, with gallium, indium, selenium, cadmium or tellurium. Today not recyclable.
· Everything that rotates needs lubricant. 50 million tons / year.
makati1 on Sat, 14th Jan 2017 9:48 pm
alain, you have it covered well. Few ‘recycling’ junkies think that even to ‘recycle’ steel, aluminum or even glasss requires temps of up to 1,200C. A lot of energy needed AFTER the materials are trucked in from all over. And what do you do with it when it is melted if you do not have the foundries, rolling mills, machine shops etc nearby? Not to mention the trucking AFTER the product is made.
P.S. good call on the lubes needed for most everything that moves. Most never consider TOTAL systems because they do not give it TOTAL thought. Just dreams of impossible futures.
Go Speed Racer on Sun, 15th Jan 2017 2:57 am
Well… I recycle metals and other materials
by the truckload …. and only as a hobby,
just to do the right thing. It is basically
true they don’t have anything more than
‘steel’ and ‘stainless steel’ so there is a reduction of quality when recycling.
So here is my question, since the recycling process
is well less than perfect, did you want i
should stop ?
If people throw the copper wire in with
the steel (this was mentioned for cars) well thats just mass stupidity. Even a hot water
tank, you can pull out all the copper, and
that separates the copper from the steel.
I have done this many times.
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