What’s the measure of success for the Circular Economy?

There’s no denying that progress is being made in the circular economy. As awareness grows and consumers push for more transparency and accountability in terms of sustainability initiatives, companies are starting to broaden their understanding of what achieving circularity entails.

While this is a positive, it’s also a bit of a double-edged sword: Achieving circularity is not a quick fix. It requires change at every stage of the product life cycle which takes time and significant investment. Companies that announce new circular economy policies but don’t back it up with financial investment and operational change will fall horribly short of their promises. In not being part of the solution, they’ll instead be adding to the problem by increasing waste produced and resources used.

This example highlights the need to be able to measure progress. It’s one thing for government and the private sector to set targets, but if they’re not legally binding and there aren’t clearly defined metrics to measure success, how can companies be held to account?

More than targets

The UK government set a target in 2018 to eliminate avoidable wastes of all kinds by 2050. It’s certainly an ambitious target, but how is it being measured? Additionally, it focusses on wastes, where the conversations should really be more about resources. There are alarming statistics that show that resource use is responsible for 90% of biodiversity loss and 50% of global emissions. This is why it’s resource use as part of the product life cycle that needs more urgent attention.

Certainly, waste is a global problem and equally it can be part of the solution when it’s viewed as a resource. But the ultimate goal of the circular economy is not just to eliminate waste, it’s about sustainable resource use.

In other words, prioritising the use of resources already within the economy and minimizing exploitation of virgin resources.  Saving resources starts with product and packaging design with the goal to improve productivity. Focusing on recycling efforts is not enough. This is why when major beverage producers make a grand fanfare about using 50% recycled plastic in their packaging by 2025, it’s met with scepticism. As one of the major producers of plastic pollution globally, these targets do little to address the volume of bottles being produced in the first place.   

Is EPR a solution?

To address issues like this, one of the solutions being proposed is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). This is a strategy designed to account for all the resource costs associated with every product produced, including environmental costs such as pollution and resource use.  Currently in the UK this targets packaging, electronic goods, batteries, end of life vehicles, and hazardous wastes. The commonality in all of these is that they are difficult to recycle. Additionally it’s proving challenging to measure all the various inputs and their associated environmental impacts due to the complexities of production.  Frustratingly, the government has pushed back the date of implementation, which not only delays any further investment, but also impacts other legislative drivers on the radar such as consistent collections.

It's one thing to be able to stamp a serial number on a car part or place a barcode on packaging, but that’s part of the finished product. Collecting input data on the various materials and resources is what’s needed to paint a more accurate picture of production costs and impacts. There is a fair amount of research being done globally to identify metrics of importance and the best ways to track them.

Some of the top circular economy metrics include: Percentage of recycled materials / virgin resources used, resource productivity, percentage of product that is recyclable, percentage of circular water consumption, percentage of renewable energy used, repairability and warranties. These last metrics highlight a return to making products that last and can be repaired. This is preferable to the mindset ushered in by tech manufacturers that it’s cheaper to replace or upgrade, than repair.

Tech collaboration opportunity

As companies progress in their circular economy efforts, it’s necessary to be able to measure success. Having access to data and being able to organise it to produce meaningful metrics is needed.

There is so much global tech expertise and there is a huge opportunity to apply this to create systems that can generate and track the metrics needed to achieve a circular economy. Having measurable results will be a way of driving greater accountability in terms of production and resource use.

Targets are not enough. When companies know they’re being tracked and have to answer to authorities on their resource use, it can help drive change. Metrics have the added benefits of increasing transparency and can be a driver helping transform economies to become more circular. However, when ambiguity and delays from government occur, it’s no wonder that companies are reluctant to invest.