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SUSTAINABILITY
reduce food waste, development of quality standards
for secondary raw materials and a strategy on plastics.
It was received with mixed acclaim, but it is a huge step.
Whilst this euro scale melodrama was taking place,
pioneering governments and cities got on with the job,
developing strategies and supporting businesses in the
transition. I was working in Northern France where the
state government was actively linking up businesses,
research and local authorities to reuse bottles, fly ash,
food waste, heat, sediments, corks, jeans, furniture… in
new ways. We came together with Denmark, Scotland,
Wallonia (Belgium), Catalonia (Spain), London (UK) and
Haarlemmermeer (Netherlands) in the Ellen MacArthur
Foundation’s CE100 governments and cities programme
to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy.
In Belgium, the Flanders’ Materials Programme
supports clusters in construction, bio-economy,
sustainable chemistry and critical metals as well as
cross-cutting enablers around sustainable design,
investment, collaboration and materials. They estimate
that the circular economy could create 27,000 jobs in
Flanders. Their great business support programmes
won them a “Circular” award at the 2016 World
Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos (http://www.
vlaamsmaterialenprogramma.be/press-release-thepublic-waste-agency-of-flanders-and-the-flandersmaterials-programme-win-the).
Scotland also stands out, with their ‘Making Things
Last’ circular economy strategy released in 2016.
Interestingly, the circular economy is also a core
aspect of their manufacturing action plan. Zero Waste
Scotland (http://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/ourwork/circular-economy) have pushed their traditional
recycling remit to now new activities, including
managing a circular economy investment fund,
supporting the development of new business models,
influencing procurement and embedding circular
economy thinking in product design.
GOVLINK » ISSUE 3 2016
But is it relevant in Australia?
When I was working on the circular economy in
Northern France, the companies we supported had
78 million consumers and €1500 billion in purchasing
power within a 3-hour radius. We could jump on public
transport and be in Paris, London or Brussels in under
90 minutes. There were 4 million people in our state,
which was one-fifth the size of Tasmania.
I’m writing this article from my office at Tonsley, just
south of Adelaide – a site built on the ruins of the
Mitsubishi factory that closed in 2008. If I drive 90
minutes, I’m in the scrub. Our population is only 1.7
million – three quarters of which is in Adelaide and the
rest very dispersed. So when we talk about the circular
economy and keeping products, components and
materials circulating efficiently, I agree that the context
is not at all the same.
Still, this didn’t stop the South Australian government
from having a stab. Green Industries South Australia
(GISA http://www.greenindustries.sa.gov.au) put out a
tender to evaluate the potential impacts of transitioning
to a circular economy in terms of jobs and carbon
emissions back in April. Just the fact that they were
doing the study was enough for an article in the Financial
Review (http://www.afr.com/news/economy/circulareconomy-makes-its-debut-in-south-australian-greeninitiatives-20160413-go5aji). A dozen similar studies
have been undertaken in Europe, looking at different
geographical boundaries (city/country/ Europe-wide) or
focussing on different impacts (economic, environmental
or both) – mostly in the brouhaha leading up to the
circular economy directive. This will be the first such
study to be published outside of Europe.
So while we await the results from SA, let’s take a look
at some of the reasons why we think it can only work
in Europe.