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<Previous Next>
  • About this report
    • Foreword – Ellen MacArthur Foundation
    • Preface – World Economic Forum
    • Executive Summary
    • Company Support
    • Acknowledgements
  • 1. The benefits of a circular economy
    • The limits of linear consumption
    • From linear to circular—Accelerating a proven concept
    • How it works up close—Case examples of circular products
    • An economic opportunity worth billions—Charting the new territory
  • 2. Why the time to act is now
    • Mounting pressure on resources
    • Favourable alignment of enablers
  • 3. What are the leakage points?
    • Losses due to geographic dispersion
    • Leakages due to materials complexity and proliferation
    • Trapped in the linear lock-in
  • 4. What are the solutions?
    • Set up global reverse networks
    • Reorganize and streamline pure materials flows
    • Innovate demand-focused business models
    • Focus on pure materials stock management at the outset
  • 5. Joining forces to make the change
    • Project charter
    • A clear plan of action
  • Back matter
    • Glossary
    • Literature
    • Appendix
    • List of figures
    • List of text boxes
    • References
Towards the circular economy: Accelerating the scale-up across global supply chains Home Previous Next
  • Report Home
  • About this report
    • Foreword – Ellen MacArthur Foundation
    • Preface – World Economic Forum
    • Executive Summary
    • Company Support
    • Acknowledgements
  • 1. The benefits of a circular economy
    • The limits of linear consumption
    • From linear to circular—Accelerating a proven concept
    • How it works up close—Case examples of circular products
    • An economic opportunity worth billions—Charting the new territory
  • 2. Why the time to act is now
    • Mounting pressure on resources
    • Favourable alignment of enablers
  • 3. What are the leakage points?
    • Losses due to geographic dispersion
    • Leakages due to materials complexity and proliferation
    • Trapped in the linear lock-in
  • 4. What are the solutions?
    • Set up global reverse networks
    • Reorganize and streamline pure materials flows
    • Innovate demand-focused business models
    • Focus on pure materials stock management at the outset
  • 5. Joining forces to make the change
    • Project charter
    • A clear plan of action
  • Back matter
    • Glossary
    • Literature
    • Appendix
    • List of figures
    • List of text boxes
    • References

1. The benefits of a circular economy

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Linear consumption is reaching its limits. A circular economy has benefits that are operational as well as strategic, on both a micro- and macroeconomic level. This is a trillion-dollar opportunity, with huge potential for innovation, job creation and economic growth.

The last 150 years of industrial evolution have been dominated by a one-way or linear model of production and consumption in which goods are manufactured from raw materials, sold, used and then discarded or incinerated as waste. In the face of sharp volatility increases across the global economy and proliferating signs of resource depletion, the call for a new economic model is getting louder. The quest for a substantial improvement in resource performance across the economy has led businesses to explore ways to reuse products or their components and restore more of their precious material, energy and labour inputs. A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. The economic benefit of transitioning to this new business model is estimated to be worth more than one trillion dollar in material savings.

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