Circular Economy vs Reality: The Broken Road To A Sustainable Future
In this fourth installment of "The World in 2035" series I break down the complex challenges and innovative solutions needed to transition to a circular economy.
From renewable materials to local food production, I'll explore the key components of a sustainable future and the role we can all play in making it a reality.
If you would prefer to read about it, there is a transcript below the video.
Circular Economy vs Reality: The Broken Road To A Sustainable Future - Video Transcript
This is the 4th video in my series, The World in 2035, and it's called The Circular Economy versus Reality, The Broken Road to Sustainable Future.
Politicians have been talking about sustainability for decades, and activists like Greta Thunberg and experts like David Attenborough and Bill Gates have asserted that more needs to be done to drive the change to sustainability. But neither the activists nor the experts have offered any method or operational plan for the change. They have also not presented any figures on how much money will be needed to be invested or mentioned the nature of the many projects that will have to be started for the change to succeed.
To drive the change to a circular economy, very large investments will be needed in a large number of areas.
The circular economy has been become a catchphrase among sustainability minded people, and many know some of the developments that are included within this umbrella concept.
For example, we need to change to renewable materials, local production, modularization and standardization, reuse and repair of products, etc. But so far, only small scale projects have been run in each of these areas.
I've been involved in several such projects and I've had the opportunity to observe the progress of others firsthand.
In 2018 my book Circular Business Models was published that discusses the changes to a circular economy. And to change production and distribution systems to a circular economy on a large scale, resources need to be focused in particular prioritized areas.
Large scale change will require much larger resources than most people expect, and it will require managed change programs. To lament renewable materials for example on a large scale, large development efforts will be needed. Raw materials will need to be grown and harvested on a large scale for these purposes. Hundreds of large scale plants will have to be built, and cost effective supply chains will have to be developed.
Tens of thousands of new companies will need to be started that will use renewable materials for the same number of existing companies that need to convert their operations to the use of these materials.
The change to local systems for food production will require large scale resources and change programs. Projects have been run with the aim of developing local food production on a large scale. Still, in most developed countries, more than 90% of the food is distributed through national and sometimes global food supply systems.
To change to local production, thousands of new local food producing companies need to be developed and new supply chains of producers, regional and local wholesalers, and local retailers need to be developed. All existing supermarkets and wholesalers will need to carry increasing volumes of locally produced food.
For this to become possible, thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners will need to turn their attention towards business opportunities in local food. Thousands of individuals will need training to be able to take on the challenges of building local and regional supply chain.
Another requirement is for consumers to become aware of the need to expand local production systems and pay more for local products and buy them on a large scale.
Activist and experts saying more needs to be done will not create the necessary new systems.
Instead very large investments will be necessary in local and regional food production, and private public collaboration will be needed, and governments will have to take the lead.
Thousands of new companies will have to be started, or existing companies need to be converted to local production.
Tens of thousands of individuals will need training to be able to work with large scale change programs and millions of consumers will need to change their preferences and prepare to pay more for local products.
Read my recent book, the severe economic and social consequences of the rapid change to electric vehicles to learn more about one of the aspects of this video series, a change to electric transportation.
I'm in the process of writing my next book, The World in 2035 in which I describe the complex challenges facing humanity over the coming decade as the present generations will tackle the complex issues of implementing a number of new technologies.
If you're interested in the change to a sustainable society and you want to know more about the technology changes of the coming decade, please subscribe to my YouTube channel or join my mailing list below.