Is slowing down the circular economy the right thing to do?

According to Paula Tejón Carbajal from Greenpeace, there is a need to slow-down the Circular Economy and to [1]:

Go beyond recycling as the main concept of the Circular Economy
To focus on designing products/services for Circularity from the outset, and
Most importantly to slow down consumption and to reject unnecessary products:
- Reducing the consumption of production and materials, resources, and energy altogether.
- Reversing the waste hierarchy and putting ‘Refusal of unnecessary products’ at the top.
- Rolling out mindful ecological designs, balanced value creation across the supply chain, and enabling recovery, repair, reuse etc.

Our perspective

There is definitely remit in addressing the waste problems at the source, ie. at the product design phase. This is where we see a mind-shift and more action to apply different design concepts to increase the suitability of products for a closed-loop system.
Adding the aspect of ‘refuse’ is not only a smart move as we become more aware of what is important during the COVID-19 crisis, it is more than that. Governments solely looking at GDP growth and Individuals only looking at accumulating Wealth, both work in the wrong direction.
Combining Circular Product Designs, Extended Producer Responsibility, and Consumer Awareness appear to be a great combined approach.

Please find the original article here:

[1] Slowing the Circular Economy. Paula Tejón Carbajal. Issued 17. July 2020. Greenpeace.com. Graphic courtesy of Stig’s Illustration and Design. Learn more here

Is slowing down the circular economy the right thing to do?

Using Design-to-Value To Build Better Products