Circular Economy – Stephen Hinton Consulting

Latest on the Real Capital Framework

The Real Capital framework bridges the gap between scientific insights and policy-making. It critiques traditional economic models for undervaluing non-monetary assets (e.g., ecosystems, social systems) and proposes a methodology to quantify and manage Natural, Built, Human, and Social Capital for sustainable decision-making.

Real Capital: A terminology list

For those studying and learning Real Capital (Multi-Capital) and its application to producing bases for decision-making, this glossary may be of help.

Modelling Supply Chains to inform Circular Economy policy

Short Communication

Stephen Hinton, Fellow, International Association of Advanced Materials

ABSTRACT

Supply chains are international. To be effective, it follows that actors should use a common language with the same vocabulary, metrics etc. in each country to be able to run, monitor and regulate them. They have a common grammar that embodies key generally accepted concepts. This grammar, however, still reflects the make-take-dispose mental models of the linear economy. This report presents a proposal for a description of supply chain grammar using the Swedish SNI categorisation of industries. The proposal models supply chains with sufficient granularity to allow identification of intervention points for the crafting of policy to stimulate the transition to circularity.

Each installed production device in the various types of the chain can be classified according to their capability for circularity, allowing for quantitative measures to help companies and countries craft policy and strategy.

AI summarizes my circular economy work in 13 minutes

I’ve been at it a long time. Working on the circular economy. From advising the Swedish Circular Economy Delegation, to working on the circular region at the university in Gävle, Sweden, to creating an online education for county administrators. Thinking to put it all in a book, I started collecting fragments into Google’s experimental NotelbookLM. Of course, it offered to do a podcast summary of it all.

Applying Real Capital to the Circular Firm

Several thinkers (including, for example, Boyd 2020 and Hazel Henderson) have suggested that the concept of real capital – or multi-capital – be introduced into the political economy to aid decision-making at policy level as well at corporate level. This may overcome one of the failings of standard economics: Policy makers often rely on economists to provide their decision bases. However, one of the failings of standard economics when preparing decision bases for policy makers, is that anything that cannot be valued in money is seen to have no value or little value. The Earth does not send a bill for the use of its atoms so the stewardship of the material world is left out. Without a comprehensive valuation framework, policy makers and strategists are likely to miss the full picture by just relying on monetary values and make decisions that could be detrimental to society, counter to the intentions of the policy.

This article gives a general explanation of the category of real capital that is built capital, and how to use its valuation in preparing decision bases. The Real Capital approach gives a more robust decision basis, helping identify long term investment needs and policy that steers investment and activities to avoid capital degeneration and promote capital regeneration.

The “C” of the ABC of supply chains is the keystone of circularity

The last article explained that, if you are looking to develop policy to drive the circular economy, then it is useful to divide supply chains up in their industrial classification. You need to look at one in particular, the keystone holding it all up – C, manufacturing. And in manufacturing, you need to focus on built capital – the capability and performance of the actual infrastructure used in manufacturing.

The ABC of Supply Chains shows the disconnects killing the planet

Fortunately for us, Sweden keeps a pretty comprehensive set of statistics ¹ on how its industry performs. It takes a while to retrieve them and put them together at the highest levels, but the exercise reveals som particular insights about how the developed world works. You could say that supply chains represent the workings of the global super organism. When you look at the system from above, you see some glaring disconnects. It gives a good idea of who is doing what to the planet, and who is earning the money from it. They are definitely different industries, if not different people.

2023: Looking Back in Anger-the realization it is too late to avoid hardship

2023 – the year I realised we are looking at the end of industrial civilisation as we know it.

Last year, some realizations hit me hard. For me, 2023 really saw the beginning of the end of what we might call the industrial way of life. For many years I have advocated transitioning to sustainability. Below I outline why I now think it is too late, instead the focus should be on mitigating the effects of destabilized weather patterns. It looks like several tipping points may be inevitable. At least we must prepare.