circular economy | Inside track

Tag Archives: circular economy

As demand for critical raw materials rises we need a better plan to manage them

Posted on 24 November, 2021 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Dr Jack Barrie, research fellow, and Dr Patrick Schröder, senior research fellow, in the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House.

Plans for a net zero transition rely on deploying a range of technologies. Many of these, such as wind turbines, digital devices, battery storage systems and electric vehicles, depend on critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, gold and rare earth metals. The steel and aluminium sectors also drive demand for critical minerals through their use in alloys.

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The government shouldn’t be scared to give consumers the right to repair, people really want it

Posted on 2 November, 2021 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Janet Gunter, communications lead and co-founder of The Restart Project.

We’re hearing a lot about reducing meat eating, flying and other high-carbon behaviours as COP26 gets going in the UK. But there’s one topic which is still getting very little attention from policy makers or the media, and that is: our voracious consumption of consumer goods.

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To put out the fires caused by overconsumption, we’ll need more than a bucket brigade

Posted on 23 September, 2021 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Maria Smith, director of sustainability and physics, Buro Happold.

With the average person in the UK consuming two to three times as many resources as the planet can sustainably supply, it’s clear we need a more systemic approach to tackle our overconsumption of resources.

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The UK’s new ‘right to repair’ is not a right to repair

Posted on 6 July, 2021 by Green Alliance blog 4 comments

This post is by Libby Peake, head of resource policy at Green Alliance, and Ugo Vallauri of The Restart Project.

We’ve all experienced the frustration of a gadget or appliance failing before it should and finding it too hard, too expensive or just too much hassle to get it fixed. In fact, it seems to be happening more and more often, and the government has noticed, saying it wants to address wasteful and aggravating premature obsolescence.

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What’s in store for the next phase of the Circular Economy Task Force

Posted on 29 June, 2021 by Green Alliance blog One comment

This post is by Libby Peake, head of resources and Tom Booker, policy assistant at Green Alliance.

In 2012, the year we launched our Circular Economy Task Force (CETF), our annual review noted: “Circular economy thinking has begun to influence economic policy in Germany, China and Japan. It is beginning to gain traction in the UK, but we still have a long way to go.”

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It’s time we recognised that overconsuming resources causes climate change and nature’s decline

Posted on 30 March, 2021 by Libby Peake One comment

In just a few short months this year, world leaders will assemble at two landmark conferences to hammer out solutions to the two biggest environmental challenges facing the planet. The COP15 Biodiversity Summit in Kunming in October will be the first since the 2010 Aichi summit which agreed 20 biodiversity targets (none of which have been delivered). Hot on its heels, the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow in November will be the first major coming together of nations since the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

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A circular economy demands a new approach to infrastructure

Posted on 19 December, 2019 by Green Alliance blog One comment

This post is by Anne Velenturf, Phil Purnell and Juliet Jopson, the co-ordination team of the Resource Recovery from Waste programme at the University of Leeds.

As consumers stock up on Christmas presents, the annual homage to consumerism sees many products end up in the bin as soon as festive cheer has faded. Read more

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Systemic solutions are the only way to avoid future environmental problems

Posted on 16 July, 2019 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Tracey Rawling Church, an independent consultant and non-executive director specialising in sustainable business.

My relationship with Green Alliance began around a decade ago when I encouraged my employer to join what was then the Resource Efficiency Task Force. As a manufacturer of office printers and copiers, Kyocera had long been a pioneer in resource efficiency, having brought to market in 1992 the first – and still the only – range of ’cartridge-free‘ office printers. Read more

The people have spoken: they want products that last and recyclable packaging

Posted on 8 November, 2018 by Libby Peake 2 comments

Environmentalists have long grappled with problems of ‘climate fatigue’ and the paralysis that can result from the threat of impending disaster, especially if that disaster is approaching slowly, “like a tidal wave of treacle”, as I’ve heard it described. Read more

Reasons to be hopeful about new funding to tackle plastic waste in developing countries

Posted on 16 May, 2018 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This blog is by Joanne Green, senior policy associate at Tearfund.

Last year, Maria das Gracas’ house flooded eight times. As I stood with her in her home in a favela in Recife, Brazil, she told me how her community is now sorting and collecting the plastic and waste that clogs the river running through the neighbourhood, improving people’s lives and preventing it getting into the ocean too.