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Tag Archives: circular economy

How plastic bags helped us grasp the bigger picture

Posted on 1 August, 2017 by Green Alliance blog One comment

This post is by Dr Colin Church, CEO of CIWM, the leading institution for resources and waste management, and the chair of the Circular Economy Task Force.

In the resource management sector, when a group of ‘strategic colleagues’ meets up, one of the conversations I’ve often heard around the table is a lament as to why politicians and the media are so focused on carrier bags, or plastic bottles, or coffee cups, or any other single product or waste stream in the news that day. They argue that this is deflecting attention from the holistic and more important bigger picture around resource productivity and the circular economy. Given that several of these specific issues featured in Michael Gove’s first keynote speech on the environment recently, I imagine this conversation is live once more. Read more

Three simple ways European product design can help eliminate poverty abroad

Posted on 28 July, 2017 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Richard Gower, senior associate for economics and policy at Tearfund. This post first appeared on Tearfund’s policy blog.

In poor nations, millions of people already make their living from ‘circular’ trades such as repair and recycling. The way we design our products in the EU – the toxic chemicals we permit and the ease of repair that we require – has a strong influence over their livelihoods. But these impacts are not currently considered as part of the process for setting design standards.

Why hasn’t the sharing revolution taken off?

Posted on 26 May, 2017 by Libby Peake Leave a comment

This post is by Libby Peake, senior policy adviser on resources at Green Alliance.

Perhaps the favourite statistic of those advocating for more sharing in our economy is that the average power drill is used for only 12 or 13 minutes over the entire course of its lifetime. This is especially significant as millions of new household power drills are sold in the UK each year, and then simply gather dust in sheds up and down the country. To people thinking about better use of resources, it seems like there’s an obvious problem here, as well as an obvious solution: a nation stockpiling power tools that are hardly ever used ought to share them more. Read more

Cleaning up the oceans is not a solution to the plastic problem

Posted on 14 March, 2017 by Dustin Benton 5 comments

This blog was first posted on EurActiv.

Plastics have brought huge benefits to our society. But with those benefits come environmental problems. Too often, plastic ends up as waste, as marine litter polluting the oceans, or as litter on our beaches.

Lightweight, durable, and low cost plastics have transformed the products we make and consume, becoming ubiquitous through their convenience and adaptability.

Circular economy

Getting novel materials right from the start should be an industrial strategy priority

Posted on 3 February, 2017 by Jonny Hazell Leave a comment

This post first appeared on BusinessGreen.

As Theresa May’s foreword to the industrial strategy shows, the government has a lot riding on this policy. The prime minister variously talks it up as the answer to the UK’s productivity problem, the means of rebalancing the economy away from financial services, and a source of employment in those parts of the country that have lost successful industries. Delivering all these objectives will require multiple approaches, as no single intervention can achieve everything.

First year verdict: how much progress has the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan made?

Posted on 26 January, 2017 by Simon Wilson Leave a comment

It is now just over a year since the European Commission published its Circular Economy Action Plan, with the bold aim of abandoning the old make-use-dispose economy in favour of ‘closing the loop’ and keeping resources in circulation. To mark this milestone, the Commission has just published its first annual report, reviewing its progress in implementing the plan.

The EU’s ecodesign policy has a PR problem

Posted on 28 October, 2016 by Simon Wilson 2 comments

Toasters have been in the news again this week, with more controversy, and more delays to the long awaited ecodesign working plan from the European Commission.

The plan will cover the next group of energy related products to be given an innovation boost through ecodesign policies, which drive up energy efficiency standards, rewards market leaders and takes inefficient products off the market. Ecodesign has been one of the EU’s most successful policies: it is already saving each European household €330 per year, and will deliver 40 per cent of the EU’s 2020 energy savings target. Read more

Retailers need to up their game to address the global resource crisis

Posted on 11 August, 2016 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Thomas Fischer, head of the Circular Economy Programme at Environmental Action Germany (DUH)

This week we celebrated a rather tragic landmark: the point when we used up all the resources that our planet can regenerate in one year. The fact that Earth Overshoot Day happened in early August points to the gravity of resource overconsumption, but the costs are already visible in ocean acidification, water pollution, destruction of forests and nearly every other environmental problem. Fortunately, there is a solution: a resource efficient circular economy. Germany has pursued a circular economy agenda for the past decade in industry, but retailers haven’t been keeping up.

Banks are waking up to the advantages of a circular economy

Posted on 2 September, 2015 by Julie Hill One comment

Green Alliance was among the first organisations to recognise the potential of the financial sector to drive sustainability. In 1992, alongside the Rio environment summit, UNEP brokered a Statement by Banks on Environment and Sustainable Development, and Green Alliance encouraged UK institutions to get involved.

Four years later, Green Alliance assessed progress against the pledges: it was discernible, but slow. Twenty-odd years on, we see the seeds sown at Rio yielding results, as financial institutions start to act on the risks and opportunities presented by environmental challenges. Read more

Top 10: circular economy resources

Posted on 15 May, 2015 by Julie Hill One comment

A representative of a leading US company recently told me that it was seeking a bigger presence in the UK because of our “thought leadership” on the circular economy.

That is in large part due to more than fifteen years of work by WRAP and Green Alliance, two organisations I have the privilege to work with, along with the Royal Society of Arts, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and a host of progressive business organisations.

But how to access the wealth of excellent material available on the subject? For key entry points, here are my top ten suggestions to help you get to grips with the circular economy: Read more

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