🌞 Bright and early this morning I joined the UNEP Global Dialogue and Youth Day to talk about how collaborative policymaking can unlock the hidden benefits of a circular economy.
Hidden benefits? 🕵♀️
🔎 The hidden costs of waste and poor waste management are huge, but largely unseen.
If we carry on the way we’re going, the negative impacts on the 🌏 climate, on 🦋 ecosystems and on 😷 human health will DOUBLE in a generation.
So it follows that the potential benefits are also largely unseen.
▶️ When governments create policy that responds to their own national challenges, they can create a wealth of job opportunities – in repair, reuse, and service-based business models.
▶️ When funders recognise that sustainable development means investing in business models that work for resource-constrained societies, they can help countries break free from aid-dependence and build stronger local economies that work for everyone.
▶️ When businesses support and deliver the true intention of Extended Producer Responsibility by designing waste out of the value chain, we can finally decouple economic growth from resource use and waste.
▶️ When women have equal opportunities to men to influence policy and service design, and to attract investment for circular business models, we can all benefit from the smarts of 100% of the population, not just the 50% that can more easily access opportunities.
▶️ When informal waste workers are respected and the value of their work is recognised, we can start building circular systems that leverage their expertise and improve wellbeing and living standards across the board, not just for the lucky few.
▶️ When community leaders, mayors, and influencers raise their voice in unity and state the future want to create, we can build momentum to carry us all forward to the sunnier uplands of the circular economy.
So please let’s reconsider – is the circular economy concept purely an aspirational economic model, or is there more to it?
Where can we start, today, to change how we approach this opportunity?
We have spent two decades and millions of 💰 talking about a circular economy, and yet real progress is pretty much a flat line – it’s like we’re stuck on pause ⏸️
We can’t keep doing the same things and expecting a different result.
Let’s pull back the covers and see what’s underneath.
What’s really going to drive us forward?
⏩ Could these hidden benefits – the ones we can feel and experience directly, shift the dial?
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These considerations are all discussed in the Global Waste Management Outlook 2024, Beyond an Age of Waste.