What can circular economy practitioners learn from the energy industry?
I’m writing this week on the heels of VERGE 21, GreenBiz Group’s annual climate tech event, and my mind is swirling with the latest and greatest ideas and innovations across the clean economy. As I sat in sessions that spanned solutions from carbon removal and regenerative agriculture to grid electrification and EV battery recycling, I was reminded of a question — really, a half-baked thought — that I’ve been turning over in my mind for a few years now.
What can the circular economy market learn from the clean energy transition?
Utilities have essentially had to figure out how to compel customers to buy less of what they’re selling, while in parallel improving the sustainability of their wares. This is a massive oversimplification of a complex and dynamic market. But that’s exactly the nut that companies are trying to crack in the pursuit of circularity.
A key component of this comes down to efficiency: one of the most impactful and least sexy strategies in the clean energy market.
As my colleague, Senior Energy Analyst Sarah Golden, put it, “Energy efficiency lacks pizzazz. It’s about something not happening. Like a no-hitter baseball game, it’s kind of cool in theory, boring to watch. But it is still where every single conversation about net-zero should begin.”
According to Amory Lovins, co-founder and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, energy efficiency measures have been responsible for reducing 30 times more carbon than clean energy since 1975. “The biggest energy resource in the world, the one that’s bigger than oil, is efficient use — but it gets no respect and almost no attention,” Lovins said in a recent interview with Golden.
In the context of circularity, efficiency is about eliminating waste from the onset and using what we have for as long as possible. This means designing out unnecessary plastic packaging, not just procuring recycled content; repairing products rather than replacing them; and manufacturing only what will be sold, to name a few.
But efficiency has to start with taking a step back to acknowledge and address unchecked consumption, a driving force behind materials extraction and waste and a famously unpopular topic of conversation among corporate representatives.
In the same way that efficiency is overlooked in the energy world, consumption is actively ignored as a part of the solutions set for a clean economy, at least by companies that profit from selling products. But there’s no denying the fact that it simply isn’t efficient to buy, use and toss at the current global rate.
Through new business models, financial mechanisms, technologies and tools, utilities are figuring out how to survive in a clean economy. Companies that want to play ball in a circular economy might want to look to their colleagues in the energy sector for inspiration on what it takes to adapt and excel in the new market reality.
What other lessons can circular economy practitioners learn from the energy industry or other markets in the clean economy? Send me your thoughts to [email protected], I’d love to hear your reflections.
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Source: https://www.ethicalmarkets.com/circularity-weekly-why-cant-we-embrace-efficiency-already/