Circular economy’s potential Euro 1.8 trillion boost

Europe – By adopting circular economy principles, Europe can take advantage of the impending technology revolution to create a net benefit of Euro 1.8 trillion by 2030 – or Euro 0.9 trillion more than via the current linear development path, concludes new research from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation together with the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment and the German environmental economics and sustainability foundation Stiftungsfonds für Umweltökonomie und Nachhaltigkeit.

This latest research is claimed to present, for the first time, a vision of how the circular economy could look for three of Europe’s most resource-intensive basic needs – food, mobility and the built environment – which together account for 60% of household costs. Europe’s current linear growth model is highly dependent on finite resources, exposing it to resource volatility, limited gains in productivity and a huge loss of value through waste, stress the researchers.

They identify ‘clear economic benefits’ of a transition to the circular economy which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest value at all times.

The full studies ‘Growth Within: a circular economy vision for a competitive Europe’ and ‘Delivering the circular economy: a toolkit for policy-makers’ are available for download from www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org