{"id":323,"date":"2014-12-03T11:12:20","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T16:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/?p=323"},"modified":"2023-11-09T14:09:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T19:09:31","slug":"towards-a-circular-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/archived-posts\/towards-a-circular-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Towards a Circular Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to a 2013 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (available <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/0BzYXYNGyKyERaXVvUHl6UVh0dDA\/view?usp=sharing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>), globally 207 million tons of packaging (worth $384 billion) cover consumer goods annually.<\/p>\n<h3>A New Paradigm<\/h3>\n<p>In the introduction, the report&#8217;s authors write that &#8220;A new term has emerged in recent years to describe our modern era\u2014the\u00a0Anthropocene. It rightly implies that in this age humans became the dominant\u00a0force shaping our physical environment. It is evident that an economy that extracts\u00a0resources at increasing rates without consideration for the environment in which it\u00a0operates, without consideration for our natural planetary boundaries, cannot continue\u00a0indefinitely. In a world of soon to be 9 billion consumers who are actively buying\u00a0manufactured goods, this approach will hamper companies and undermine economies.\u00a0We need a new way of doing business.<\/p>\n<h3>\u00a0A Brighter Future<\/h3>\n<p>The concept of a circular economy promises a way out. Here products do not quickly\u00a0become waste, but are reused to extract their maximum value before safely and\u00a0productively returning to the biosphere. Most importantly for business leaders, such an\u00a0economy can deliver growth. Innovative product designers and business leaders are\u00a0already venturing into this space.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a 2013 report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (available here), globally 207 million tons of packaging (worth $384 billion) cover consumer goods annually. A New Paradigm In the introduction, the report&#8217;s authors write that &#8220;A new term has emerged in recent years to describe our modern era\u2014the\u00a0Anthropocene. It rightly implies that in this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[20,18,14],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archived-posts","tag-lawrenceville","tag-packaging","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7387,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/7387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sustainablelawrence.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}