Transitioning from a Linear to a Circular Economy

Transitioning from a Linear to a orotund EconomyPrepare a critical review evaluating the challenges of transitioning from a one-dimensional to a flier prudence. 2000 words (24th March)IntroductionThe linear sit down of consumption impart need to adjust or be replaced in the near future due to rebellion population, decreasing resources (i.e. metals, materials), and water limits. The current linear scotch system is unsustainable but the concept of street arab scrimping may supply the means to allow for sustainability by improving efficient use of material and energy.From policies and frameworks driven on a macro scale by local goernments to optimisation of process lines and drive off diminution on a micro scale gives more social and sustainable aspects to our current way of resource use. We can use examples without the world of a shift in the utilization of resources in an overall effect of achieving the ultimate goal of zero waste and impact to the environment.What is Linear Economy?Linear economies fag out the worlds resources are unlimited. The linear models primary objective is to the scrimping, with no regard for ecological and social impacts. It takes waste from the resultion process and contaminates the environment and is based on the principle, take, make, consume, shake off and ever immutable availability of resources. (Drljaca, 2015) This was due to a historically cheap and plentiful keep down of resources being available leading to companies focusing on supplying the customer. This has do by the environmental impact and lacked incentives to minimise waste from its crosswayionion to its culmination of life.Currently there is more than 11 billion tons of global waste globally and only 25% is recycled. (Lacy Rutqvist, 2015)Circular EconomyCircular economy focuses on the sustainable exploitation of resources but also acts to outgrowth the social responsibility. It aims to decouple successfulness from resource consumption by ensu ring a closed loop process which depends on the extraction of virgin resources. (Sauve, Bernard Sloan, 2016) The concept allows waste to be put through with(predicate) the production process again and thereafter only a small amount of waste that is unable to be recycled is disposed into the environmental harmlessly. This will pull down our dependency for new resources, allow future generations to meet their needs, and promote sustainability.Due to Chinas resource supply and environmental problems they have utilised the circular economy model on a depicted object level many age ago allocating three distinctive levels micro, meso, and macroThe micro level aims to reduce waste and optimize materials for cleaner production within an individual company.The meso level collaborates between industries to utilise the by-product of one another which is facilitated by Chinas governmental directives.The circular economy at a macro level is integrated with societal and stakeholder interests which is on a similar level to sustainable development. (Sauve, Bernard Sloan, 2016) cipher 3.1 Overview of the circular economy concept. (Reh, 2013)The circular economy model aims to replace the linear economy model by extending the usefulness of the product via several methodsBuilding a product which has a laid-backer case and more durable targeting the consumers who are able to pay a premium.Refurbishing a productTrade back your product to the market for a price conjure the product to add new featuresRefilling a component in the product where the rest of the functions are still in quality.Repairing a broken product (Lacy Rutqvist, 2015)Having a society that promotes circular economy may increase competition worldwide. (Drljaca, 2015)PoliciesThe transition from a linear to circular economy has been happening for many years and is seen from the laws, policies, and frameworks given below in numerous countries around the world. The methodology changes from country to country as an example according to Tukker (2015) China promotes a top-down national political objective temporary hookup the EU, Japan and USA use bottom-up environmental and waste management policies.CountryCircular economy strategyUKThe phratry of Commons suggested in 2014 that the circular economy should be stimulated by taxation reforms. This would reward reuse and give more funding for companies promoting material recovery. They could foreclose companies using non-recyclable components where other alternatives exist. (Lacy Rutqvist, 2015)DenmarkThe Denmark without waste strategy focuses on better exploiting the resource by reducing the environmental impact and improving recycling, e.g. household waste recycling. backing is given for improvements in waste separation and treatment facilities. (Lacy Rutqvist, 2015)ScotlandThe Safeguarding Scotlands Resources initiative is aims to reduce material use through replacing material with reused/ recyclable substitutes and making legitimate t hat virgin resources are efficiently and productively used.ChinaSeveral regions using the Circular Economy Promotion Law of the Peoples Republic of China have preparedness up funds aiming at the circular development and developments of science. The law also pushes for collaboration among several industries to re-use each others waste to benefit their own process. (Lacy Rutqvist, 2015)capital of SingaporeThe Singapore Packaging Agreement (SPA) joint initiative by the private sector, nongovernmental organisations, and government which dramatically reduces the packaging waste in Singapore. This has saved USD 35 million over a 5-year period. (Lacy Rutqvist, 2015)The Republic of CroatiaThe Act on Sustainable Waste Management manages waste at its source by putting the cost of waste to the producer. governing must not threaten future generations. (Drljaca, 2015)The drivers for the transition from a linear to a circular economyThe transition towards a circular economy is subordinate on politics, culture, society, the economy, and technology limitations. This transition can be implemented from the top-down or bottom-up. The top-down process as an example has international and national policies delegated to companies and their operations and supply gyves. The bottom-up process starts at the product level hoping to simulate ideas at a more disaggregated level of analysis up to the toweringer level systems. The top-down process should be used to enhance bottom-up initiatives. The aim is to identify areas where we can reduce virgin resources usage, carbon emissions, and waste production by collaborating between supply chains and stakeholders e.g. Local Authorities. (Genovese et al., 2017)EconomicsBy 2030 the linear growth model will be unable to supply the growing take away for resources. The most(prenominal) likely model by Lacy Rutqvist (2015) shows a USD 4.5 trillion loss by 2030 increasing to USD 25 trillion by 2050. If the circular economy replaces the curre nt linear model it could potencyly release USD 4.5 trillion in additional sparing output by 2030 as shown in Figure 5.1.1.Figure 5.1.1 Potential savings from a circular opportunity. (Lacy Rutqvist, 2015)However, according to Drljaca (2015), the circular advantage hopes to give a competitive edge leading to improvement of resource utilisation which could decrease material exploitation by 17-24% until 2030 with savings of EUR 630 billion per year which totals USD 10.3 trillion from 2015-2030 (1 EUR = 1.0867 USD 2015 average, Pound Sterling (2016)).In either case the huge potential savings from using the circular advantage could persuade governments to drive the change.Fair competition between linear and circular economyCurrent regulations give linear economy an unfair advantage over circular economy by making it more financially attractive by increased profits through expanding resource use. A shift of taxation from labour to resources would see this shift in bias. Companies are en couraged to extract new resources instead of investing in people and processes to achieve a higher productivity of resources already in use. Currently the Europe labour tax totals 52% of all tax revenues while Other taxes could include landfill tax, energy recovery tax, and reducing the VAT on a more circular advantage product. An increase in cost of the product that incorporates the cost of environmental impact would help manufacturers to minimise the impact to keep pricing competitive.Product-service systems (PSS)In a product-oriented business model companies focus on the increase in products sold to maximise profits however in a PSS model companies are paid by offering a service and the product and consumable is the cost factor. This leads to the companies being incentivised to prolong the life of the product which could be done by using more robust materials or re-using parts to the end of the products life.Renting, leasing, and sharing reduces the impact on the environmental pe r product manufactured however leased products will tend to be used without care leading to trim back longevity of the product and will be returned to the manufacturer more frequently compared to the traditional manner.Due to labour intensity, PSS increases the cost to manufacture the product and dependent on the speed of innovations for certain technological industries the re-use of components may be deemed uneconomic due to no demand.PSS can contribute to resource -efficiency and a circular economy but does not change the incentive to maximise the product sales. (Tukker, 2015)Circular Economy ChallengesEntropyThe circular economy assumes the planet is a closed system with the amount of resources being depleted equalling the amount of waste generated. This principle follows the Laws of Thermodynamics however in practice the circular flow of exchange starts with low entropy from the environment and ends with high entropy waste polluting the environment. (Genovese et al., 2017)Sauve , Bernard Sloan (2016) further emphasises this with an added social impact of, what is socially more desirable investing in a new infrastructure to recycle tender material to limit waste or exploit additional raw materials at cheaper cost to use today to build a school? At some point the cost to refine the material will exceed the benefit to the environment.ProcessesAccording to Sauve, Bernard Sloan (2016), in many cases certain processes in the value chains are non-existent leading to products that are in the queue for recycling often dis-regarded as companies who seek profit are not ready to use waste as the raw material for new manufacturing. Some experts see the implementation of the circular economy model for sustainable development on current linear economy model productions as an automatic failure.It is difficult to achieve a profit using circular economy as support is sometimes out of stock(predicate) through policies, national eco-industrial parks (EIPs) initiatives, en vironmental legislative framework, and economic taxes and subsidies for development. (Ghisellini, Cialani Ulgiati, 2016)Economics Fair CompetitionThe complexity and early understanding of circular economy will require experts from many sectors to achieve the economic incentives that would ensure the post-consumption products are re-integrated upstream within manufacturing. It is more expensive to manufacture a durable long lasting product than an equivalent quick and disposable version. This is based on the fact that the public pays for the cost of disposal to the environment. In order to make circular economy more feasible requires integration of the cost of disposal into the price paid by the customer. (Sauve, Bernard Sloan, 2016)There needs to be internalisation of full environmental be implemented using certain governmental legislation (e.g. taxes) to ensure reverse flow of the products post-economy. This is therefore dependent on governmental intervention which is dictated by political-economic issues which in turn will slow down circular economy opportunities. (Sauve, Bernard Sloan, 2016)Geographic FeasibilityIt may be unfeasible to use recycling, reuse and/or recovery as an option within certain geologies as they may not be appropriate in some instances based on light-green chemistry and technologies available e.g. prevention maybe a better option. (Tukker, 2015)More examples can be seen in Table A1.Case studiesTATA SteelCurrently concrete, timber, and nerve have huge differences in their life cycle flows within the demolishing manufacture of buildings as seen in Figure 7.1.1. According to Reh (2013), achieving complete re-use and recycling stiff impossible with todays technology so maximum recovery of the most valuable resource remains the first priority. The integration of different materials combined with depreciation requires a more involved investigation of the recovery plan which becomes very complex.Figure 7.1.1 Life cycle of a demolishe d building (Reh, 2013)Blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) is the most common steel process however with shortage of metallurgy coke, high CO2 emissions, high by-product of slag, and dust from blast furnace gas cleaning is not considered environmental friendly. An alternative being the new electric arc furnace which is more energy efficient and reduces the CO2 emissions but high capital investments remain the limitation. (Reh, 2013)Toyota Motor CooperationBy optimising the sorting of dust in Toyotas automobile shredder pants Toyota were able to successfully treat 100% of the residue of 15,000 cars per month into valuable materials. High value galvanizing energy is transferred to several process steps to decrease the entropy of mixing during production. This improvement in technology has an exponential impact on the car industry with an estimated 1 billion cars in the world. (Reh, 2013)ConclusionThe transition to a circular economy has many challenges and obstacles in the nea r future. As shown, many countries are placing high emphasis on the legislation and development of circular economy as they see a requirement to adjust on a macro sustainable level. If the transition is increased this could potentially unlock several trillions of dollars over the many years to come. In order for this to work a combination of strategies at both level is required to allow each stakeholder to be a benefit to the global transition.Appendix ATable A1 Further examples of challenges with circular economy (Ghisellini, Cialani, Ulgiati, 2016)ReferencesBRIEN, H. G. (2015a) Circular Economy. Online Available from https//kenniskaarten.hetgroenebrein.nl/en/kenniskaart/circular-economy/ Accessed twenty-third February 2017BRIEN, H. G. 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