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To mark the world’s premier circular awards program, The Circulars, opening up entries for 2016, we take a look at the impact that a circular economy approach is already having on businesses.
Two studies in recent weeks have put some hard figures to the economic benefits that a shift to the circular economy could bring.
First up was an independent report commissioned by resource management business Veolia and produced by Imperial College London. It found that a combination of closing the loop on resource use and moving to a service rather than product based economy has the potential to add £29 billion to UK Gross Domestic Product over the next decade.
Hot on the heels of this was the Growth Within report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. It claims a pan-European shift to a circular economy could create a net benefit of €1.8 trillion for European economies by 2030.
These are compelling and timely figures, as the European Commission considers its circular economy strategy with the promise of presenting a new, more ambitious plan by the end of the year. But there is already a huge up-swell in ground-level innovation in this field being driven by large corporations, and small and medium enterprises alike. Here’s a round-up of 10 ways the approach is impacting on what they are doing.