The economy is a hot button issue right now. From Donald Trump’s erratic trade war whims to an ongoing affordability crisis at the grocery store, at the pumps, and in the housing sector, many across the country are hurting and searching for a more stable and sustainable financial forecast.
Canada is at a crossroads. Continuing down our current path, an economy based on continuous resource depletion and waste-generation, will continue producing the same results: accelerating climate change, ecosystem destruction and wealth inequality.
But a different future is possible. We can design an economic system that puts people and planet – not profit – at the heart of decision making. We can begin dismantling staggering wealth inequality and create a society of abundance for all people. We can work towards reconciling Canada’s relationship with Indigenous Nations and the natural world. That sounds great, but how can we actually achieve this?
Let’s talk about the circular economy and how shifting our economic model can help us build a better world for us all now, and for future generations.
What is Canada’s current economic model?
Let’s start by taking a look at our current system. Right now, we live in a capitalistic linear economy that operates as if there are infinite resources and energy that can be extracted from the Earth. It’s a ‘take-make-dispose’ model that generates mind-boggling amounts of waste and is a root factor driving several inter-related ecological crises, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and toxic pollution.
Not only is our current model exceeding planetary limits and wreaking havoc on ecosystems, it is bad news for people. Pollution and environmental destruction are harming the health of communities while exacerbating social injustice and inequity, as well as violating human and Indigenous Rights. Our current system continues to concentrate more and more wealth in the hands of an elite few, while the rest of us, and the Earth, pay the price.
A circular economy aims to address the unsustainable extraction and waste of our current model. To avoid perpetuating the inequality and human and Indigenous Rights harms, this system must also be built with the well-being of people and communities in mind.
What even is a circular economy?
The term “circular economy” is often bandied about by people who remain, shall we say, fuzzy on the definition. Which is little surprise, given that a 2017 research paper on the topic identified at least 114 definitions of the term. [1]
The ideal of a circular economy aims to avoid the landfill altogether. The circular economy has been proposed as a tool to re-envision, re-orient and redesign material and energy use away from the linear “take-make-waste” model. It keeps everything in a closed loop, meaning that valuable resources are absorbed back into the supply chain via methods such as repairing and repurposing.
This economic transformation requires more than just modifying the lifecycle of material and energy. It requires a transition to regenerative, well-being and decolonial economies that ensure the health and well-being of all – including current and future generations of human and non-human life – in an inclusive, equitable and just manner and within the limits of what Earth can provide. This also requires acknowledging the sovereign Indigenous Nations on these lands.
12 guiding principles to building a circular economy with people and planet at the center
Ecojustice has been developing a vision for a circular economy at all levels of government, including the following guiding principles that could inform a shared vision for a circular economy:
1. Systems change: systemic reforms that address the colonial, extractive and consumption-based underpinnings of our economy, not just technological solutions.
2. Ecological Limits: live within our earth’s limits by producing and consuming less and using material, resources and energy in a cyclical manner. This requires prioritizing source reduction, reduced consumption, reuse, and repair, with resource recovery/recycling as a last resort.
3. Reciprocity: live in relationships where we give back and restore what has been taken.
4. Holistic: full cost accounting and life cycle assessment of all associated impacts from the use of materials and energy (e.g. climate, biodiversity, and health).
5. Intersectional: advance interrelated climate, biodiversity, reconciliation, decolonization, social justice, equity and just transition objectives (see principles 6-9 as examples).
6. Centering Indigenous Rights, Knowledge and Sovereignty: Indigenous voices and knowledge are prioritized in developing a circular economy vision and strategy, Indigenous economies are supported (what some are framing as “economic reconciliation”), and Indigenous communities’ benefit.
7. Social justice and equity: Address historical and ongoing disproportionate impacts and inequities caused by the current linear economy on Indigenous peoples, racialized and marginalized communities.
8. Just Transition: create and sustain good jobs in new economies and ensure workers, Indigenous peoples, racialized and marginalized communities benefit from a just transition (e.g. invest in solutions that benefit their communities)
9. Intergenerational justice and equity: between current and future generations.
10. International obligations: compliance with international obligations to ensure environmental protection and justice across jurisdictional borders.
11. Inclusive and participatory: promote a plurality of perspectives and solutions; centre Indigenous leaderships and other marginalized perspectives; and create processes that consider needs of future generations and non-humans.
12. Non-regression: only strengthen and do not weaken the protections provided.
It’s good in theory, but we’re not there yet
While a circular economy offers great promise to building a better future, we’re not there yet. The reasons why it’s not happening involves many factors, but a key one is that there are powerful forces with a vested interest in boosting consumption. That’s how they make money. Many industry actors have even co-opted the term to drive false, greenwashed solutions to circularity. Slapping a ‘made from recycled plastic’ sticker on a product and calling it a day. No matter how slick the marketing, if companies continue to drive demand for endless extraction, there is nothing circular about that – except maybe the logic.
The cop out from businesses who engage in such greenwashing is usually to put the responsibility on the consumer. They can always recycle it, industry say, ignoring the fact that recycling is never a one-person job. You need infrastructure in place to collect, to sort, to process. And when it comes to plastic only 9 per cent is recyclable.[3] You need systemic change and accountability that the plastics industry is fighting against.
More importantly, circularity does not just mean recycling and recovery. It requires using less materials and energy at the outset, designing better products that use recyclable materials to minimize the need for resource extraction and making better use of the materials we already have in circulation.
Keeping people and planet, not profit, as Canada’s political priority
With economic upheaval, increasing global tensions, and ever-rising climate change, it’s easy to feel like the whole world is in chaos. But a better future is possible, and a circular economy provides a pathway to help get us there.
To build a better future, it is critical that we respect the limits of what earth can provide and ensure the health and well-being of all, including future generations, remains the central focus of the Canada – and the world – we hope to build.
Stay tuned
This blog is the first in a series exploring circular economy and how it can help us build a better world. Stay tuned in the coming months as we further explore the guiding well-being principles of the circular economy and the policies and frameworks that can help get us there.
References
[1] Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions – ScienceDirect
[2] The circular economy isn’t just a zero-waste goal – Corporate Knights
[3] Plastic pollution is growing relentlessly as waste management and recycling fall short, says OECD – OECD
