Let’s take a look back to the year where circular economy took centre stage; involving our consulting service and seeing the launch of the Academy of Investors in Peace and their online circular economy courses.
The Swedish Government declared in January that Sweden was aiming to become resource-frugal, circular and bio-based. Our consulting service was engaged to create a database of the main economic incentives that were in place or thought of that could drive the circular economy.
We presented our perspective later in the year. See our presentation (translated to English) here.
A deeper reading of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals showed us that a major changed had taken place with us hardly noticing it. The SDGs signal an end to poverty, hunger and environmental degradation and lay the foundation for the truly global circular economy. Read more of our analysis here.
We had a chance to get to know more about India, where waste pickers are going from the lowest of the low to seeing themselves as professional resource creators with their own union.
We spent much of 2019 together with partners to kick off the School of Circular Economy at the Academy of Investors in Peace. We are especially proud of our introduction booklet (free to download) that offers an introduction in a down-to-earth way. Pun intended.
Try our handy little quiz to see your readiness level for the circular economy.
The circular economy needs a model of circular money flow too. We launched a course that explains just that – introducing the bath tub model of the economy.
If you have not met it yet, Kate Rayworth’s model -doughnut economics – is a bold attempt to make economics fit for purpose. We suggest that it needs the bathtub model and an understanding of where incentives fit in. We explain more about incentives (Market Based Instruments) that can be applied sensibly to usher in the circular economy while keeping the economy buoyant.
We understand that linear and extractive practices will continue as long as the economic system stays unchanged. We released an analysis of how exactly the capitalist model of the firm drives extraction and waste. Although AI looks like it has the power not only to replace workers, but the owners too. The change may come sooner than we expect.
We were working on a vision of the circular economy: the circular home, neighborhood, municipality, region, etc. Starting with the home.
We took a deeper look at green growth and asked ourselves what the bath tub model of economics shows us about growth.
It is no coincidence we have our circular economy course at investorsinpeace.com. The circular economy can be one foundation stone of peace on the Earth. Let us explain.
Not that we feel that capitalism is so dysfunctional for circularity that it cannot be fixed. On the contrary, there are several solutions that we can implement soonest.
Accountants. We want to bring the accountants on board to show how to highlight the circular economy in the figures. Handy if you are pitching a business plan too. Download our guide here.
The Swedish island of Gotland is at the leading edge with its project around local energy and circular use of resources. We came i to do a LERA Local Energy and Resource analysis. Part of this was to understand the energy coming in and money going out of the area to see the possibilities for a local micro-grid and local bio energy.
To end the year we launched our Universal Income Simulation Game as a single/small group player version. UBI will surely help the transition to the circular economy, but you need to convince yourself it is economically viable. Try your ideas out in our game.
All of that blogging got us selected as one of the top circular economy blogs of 2019.
Stephen Hinton Consulting 