What are the benefits of circular economy?
Sustainable development needs upsetting changes in the way our businesses and societies are organized. Appeared a few years ago, the circular economy model provides with a new chance of innovation as well as integration between businesses, natural ecosystems, waste management and our daily lives. If you wish to discover all benefits of circular economy, you should read this article.
Substantial resource savings
At the same time the attention is increasing around the circular economy, the prices and extraction of primary raw materials are getting increased. According to the calculations of the Circle Economy, 9% of raw materials were entirely recycled in 2019. By 2018, that percentage was faintly higher at 9,1%. With the circular economy, in theory, 100% of raw materials are wholly recycled, and there is no need of new virgin raw materials.
Economic growth
One of the main principles of circular economy consists of decoupling economic growth from raw materials’ consumption. Then, the economy isn’t hindered by the lack of raw materials likely to grow. It is obvious that advocating the circular economy is sure to be a promotion tool of economic growth. The UNEP (United Nations Environmental Plan) estimated that the global economy in 2050 would take advantage of more resource use by 2 trillion dollars a year. As long as a circular economy is advocated, this gain would surely be achieved.
This will come true first through enhanced turnover arising from recent circular activities and secondly via the inception of more functionality with the same number of means of production and materials. If you wish to redesign your business and generate positive impacts to get ecosystems regenerated, visit Circulab.
The development, production, as well as maintenance of circular products need a particular workforce likely to enhance these jobs. At the same time, less demand will be registered as far as raw materials’ extraction and processing are concerned. And then, there will be a reduction of less specialized jobs’ number. This will enhance the value of labor, a good thing for GNP and employment.
Growth of employment
As it has been explained above, labor has more value in a circular economy than raw materials. Therefore, employment is growing, and these jobs will get expanded for high-quality repairs and labor-intensive recycling, new enterprises via innovation, jobs at the level of the logistics sector via local product take-back, new business models and service economy.
Innovation stimulus
Circular economics involves innovative solutions which are based on a new way of thinking. This means thinking of circular instead of linear value chains. It means also striving for optimizations regarding the whole system. This indeed results in new insights, cooperation between producers, recyclers, designers and then as well in sustainable innovations.
Changing demand
A last important factor, when talking about the benefits of circular economy, proves to be the demand side’s better understanding. The way companies get on with their customers as well as the role they play through their lives finally leads to a lesser use of waste generation, raw materials and changing production.
What briefly needs to be emphasized?
In a nutshell, measures like eco-design and reuse, waste prevention could save 600 billion euros for EU companies, which equates to 8% of yearly turnover, while also decreasing total yearly greenhouse gas emissions by 2 to 4%. Getting on with a more circular economy is likely to provide benefits such as enhancing the security of raw materials supply, reducing pressure upon the environment, stimulating innovation, increasing competitiveness, creating jobs and boosting economic growth.
Likewise, consumers will be given more innovative and durable products that are able to save them money and better their quality of life in the long term.