November sees the return of the Round Financial system Competition, created final yr by the CIWM. In preparation for the occasion, Round met two of the famend audio system current.
The Round Financial system Competition is a significant four-day on-line occasion providing CIWM members the chance to study from the specialists.
Realizing the social, environmental and financial advantages of a round financial system requires formidable motion, and everybody has a job to play – from governments and companies to people.
The competition will concentrate on how greatest to have a good time and assist “the worldwide transition to a round financial system by way of sustainability and useful resource effectivity”.
Forward of this huge occasion, Round spoke to 2 of this yr’s excessive profile audio system: Dutch-born sustainable enterprise guru Marga Hoek and extremely revered British environmentalist Tony Juniper.
Marga Hoek is likely one of the world’s best-known authorities on how companies can function sustainably and transition from a linear to a round financial system.
The round strategy is supported by firms enthusiastic about downside fixing.
Former CEO of a number of non-public and public organisations, in addition to director of the Dutch Sustainable Enterprise Affiliation, she is likely one of the high 30 new administration thinkers on the planet, based on rating group Thinkers 50.
His revealed work consists of New Financial system Enterprise, which has gained worldwide popularity of its imaginative and prescient of a sustainable round financial system. His newest ebook, The Trillion Greenback Shift, focuses on the International Targets, established by the United Nations in 2015.
Tony Juniper is a British campaigner, author, sustainability adviser and environmental champion. For greater than 35 years, he has labored for change in direction of a extra sustainable society.
He’s the previous Government Director of Mates of the Earth England Wales and Northern Eire; former vice-president of Mates of the Earth Worldwide; and presently chairman of Pure England, which advises the federal government on the pure atmosphere, serving to to guard the nation’s landscapes and wildlife.
He has many best-selling books to his credit score, together with What Nature Does For Britain, What’s Actually Taking place To Our Planet and Rainforest: Dispatches From Earth’s Most Very important Frontlines.
Round requested them each to reply the identical 5 key questions.
What are you planning to speak about on the competition?
TJ: Though carbon and local weather change function very prominently in environmental debates, they don’t seem to be the one points that we urgently want to deal with.
The decline of nature is an equally pressing story and the actual fact is that these two issues, low carbon and nature, are essentially linked and might solely be approached by way of the prism of a round financial system.
Are you able to inform us a bit about your area?
TJ: My work has embraced a really wide selection of sustainability and environmental points relationship again almost 40 years. My present position as Chairman of Pure England actually focuses my consideration on the state of nature and the methods wanted to reverse many years of decline, not solely of uncommon but additionally widespread species.
Whereas now we have targeted closely on protected areas and species conservation, it’s changing into more and more clear that the standard of the broader atmosphere can also be a significant challenge. This in flip raises extra basic questions, a few of that are in regards to the concept of a round financial system.
What do you suppose is a very powerful environmental challenge right now?
TJ: I feel everybody would agree that local weather change and the decline of the pure world are the 2 huge headlines, however actually if you wish to cope with these two subjects, you are extra within the realm of social and financial points.
The most important environmental problem is designing a sustainable financial system. We do not have that but
It’s because finally it’s what all of us do as human societies that determines the outcomes. So I might say the most important environmental problem is designing a sustainable financial system. We do not have that but.
How do you understand the general public perspective in direction of waste and what must be finished to get extra engagement across the challenge?
TJ: I feel the concept of waste, and eliminating it, is likely one of the best methods to interact with the general public on environmental and sustainability points. You need not lecture individuals, you need not inform them they’re unsuitable.
It is intuitive that losing is a nasty concept, so addressing points by way of this specific idea can really be very useful. It’s a cultural fruit at hand.
What does the round financial system seem like to you?
TJ: The round financial system is an financial system that imitates nature. Now we have developed a linear financial system in our industrial society. We take sources from the atmosphere, remodel them into merchandise we use, after which waste them, going to landfill, the environment through incineration and an rising quantity ending up within the ocean.
The round financial system is an financial system that imitates nature.
If we’re to satisfy these monumental challenges forward of us, we have to transfer from a linear financial system to at least one that mimics the pure world, the place there isn’t a waste and every little thing works in circles, cycles and loops.
What do you intend to speak about on the Competition?
MH: The unconventional change that the round financial system implies – a change in the way in which we produce, distribute and devour, and due to this fact a radical change within the financial mannequin.
I will clarify the way it’s not only a necessity, however an enormous enterprise alternative – perhaps even the most important of all time. I’ll share thrilling and provoking instances of firms all over the world which might be seizing these alternatives and succeeding in doing so.
Are you able to inform us a bit about your area?
MH: I used to be CEO thrice and led the Sustainable Enterprise Affiliation for a few years.
My mission is to display to the world that “enterprise for good is nice enterprise”, and to attain this, it should change into the norm moderately than the exception. I’m a board member and board advisor to a number of worldwide firms, writer and speaker.
What do you suppose is a very powerful environmental challenge right now?
MH: Because the local weather disaster looms, many interconnected environmental subjects have gotten essential. What involves the fore in our each day lives as an environmental dilemma is client waste. All firms ought to try to have a constructive impression on the Sustainable Growth Targets, and this needs to be the core philosophy of all innovation.
We’d like nothing lower than complete, interconnected sustainable options that handle all phases of the product lifecycle. Nevertheless, it’s important that environmental safety doesn’t come on the expense of financial and societal progress.
New markets with sustainable progress collectively symbolize $12 billion in alternative by 2030.
The World Fee on Enterprise and Sustainable Growth has studied these markets and located that particular enterprise alternatives come up in 4 areas: cities, meals and agriculture, vitality and supplies, and well being and The well-being. Unlocking these markets additionally opens the potential for creating round 380 million jobs per yr by 2030.
How do you understand the general public perspective in direction of waste and what must be finished to get extra engagement across the challenge?
MH: Almost 300 million tons of plastic waste is produced annually, however round 91% of all plastic just isn’t recycled. As a result of it will probably take as much as 1,000 years for plastics to interrupt down, we have to act now and actually cease creating litter and clear up our landfills and our oceans.
Though the general public in developed economies is conscious of consumption and waste, companies have to take cost and transfer the markets.
It’s within the curiosity of firms to search out new options that allow sustainable consumption and manufacturing patterns. Corporations can harness the facility of sustainable improvements to design acceptable options that may allow and encourage individuals to steer extra sustainable life, lowering environmental impacts and enhancing well-being.
What does the round financial system seem like to you?
MH: Corporations have an unlimited impression and a duty in accelerating the collective transition in direction of the round financial system, whereas assembly extraordinarily multidimensional goals. Visionary leaders who take daring steps in firms that use sustainable product lifecycle processes will undoubtedly obtain constructive environmental, monetary and social outcomes.
This round strategy is backed by firms who’re enthusiastic about fixing issues and constructing companies which might be as impactful as they’re worthwhile. Enterprise leaders are on the forefront of harnessing a brand new wave of sustainable platforms to enhance each the atmosphere and income.
To seek out out extra in regards to the Round Financial system Competition, go to circulareconomyfestival.com to order your spot right now.
