Circular Economy For Dummies

Imagine a waste-free future for your business, your family, and yourself

A circular economy is an economic system designed to save money, eliminate waste, and achieve deep sustainability. No-brainer, right? Circular Economy For Dummies explains why the old way of doing things (linear economy) is fast going the way of the dinosaurs, and it gets you ready to think circular. From business processes and material lifecycles to circular design in just about every industry, this book is a fascinating glimpse into our sustainable future.

Whether you're looking to close the resource loop in your business or develop a greener lifestyle for yourself and your family, this book shows you how. Learn how to innovate for circular economy, how to turn trash into treasure, and how to calculate the (potentially large) amount of money this will save you. And-bonus-you'll feel good doing the right thing and being a part of our sustainable future!

• Challenge the assumptions behind the old-school "linear economy" model
• Learn how we can work together to achieve a waste-free future
• Save money by rethinking your resource use or business supply chain

• Reimagine households, neighborhoods, schools, companies, and societies
  The future is circular. Buck business-as-usual and learn how to create a circular economy for all!

Auteur

Kyle J. Ritchie is the Education Sustainable Design Lead at Cannon Design in Chicago and an Adjunct Professor at the Boston Architectural College.

Eric Corey Freed is an award-winning architect, 12-time author, and global speaker. He is a sought-after lecturer who has educated over 250,000 people on sustainability and high-performance building.

Texte du rabat

Re-imagine the future of economics and society

Are you excited about a regenerative, efficient, and waste-free future? You should be! The circular economy is making short work of old-school (and wasteful) ways of thinking. Players in the circular economy are re-imagining business processes and material lifecycles to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and make their families' futures brighter and more prosperous. You'll learn to transform the way you live and work and feel great about being part of the solution to many of the world's energy and environmental problems.

**Inside...

• Why Take-Make-Waste is outdated
• Finding opportunity in ecology
• The 6 R's of circular economies
• Rethinking material lifecycles
• Turn trash into treasure
• Creating careers in circularity
• Why circular ideas are healthier
• Make, use, reuse, repair and recycle

Résumé

Imagine a waste-free future for your business, your family, and yourself

A circular economy is an economic system designed to save money, eliminate waste, and achieve deep sustainability. No-brainer, right? Circular Economy For Dummies explains why the old way of doing things (linear economy) is fast going the way of the dinosaurs, and it gets you ready to think circular. From business processes and material lifecycles to circular design in just about every industry, this book is a fascinating glimpse into our sustainable future.

Whether you're looking to close the resource loop in your business or develop a greener lifestyle for yourself and your family, this book shows you how. Learn how to innovate for circular economy, how to turn trash into treasure, and how to calculate the (potentially large) amount of money this will save you. Andbonusyou'll feel good doing the right thing and being a part of our sustainable future!

• Challenge the assumptions behind the old-school linear economy model
• Learn how we can work together to achieve a waste-free future
• Save money by rethinking your resource use or business supply chain
• Reimagine households, neighborhoods, schools, companies, and societies
  The future is circular. Buck business-as-usual and learn how to create a circular economy for all!

Contenu

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

Icons Used in This Book 4

How This Book Is Organized 4

Part 1: Linear Is Out, Circular Is In: An Economic Revolution 4

Part 2: Rethinking Business for a Circular Economy 5

Part 3: Rethinking Material Lifecycles The Circular Perspective 5

Part 4: Redesigning the Future to Be Circular 5

Part 5: Creating a Circular Economy for All 6

Part 6: The Part of Tens 6

Beyond the Book 6

Where to Go from Here 7

Part 1: Linear Is Out, Circular Is In: An Economic Revolution 9

Chapter 1: Rejecting Waste, Rethinking Materials, and Redesigning the World 11

Rejecting the Idea of Waste 12

Waste as a driver of the economy 13

Waste as a resource 13

Rethinking Material Lifecycles 16

Take, make, and waste 17

Making technical materials circular 17

Making biological materials circular 18

Upcycling versus downcycling 19

Redesigning the Future to Be Circular 19

Food production 20

Circular businesses, products, and clothing 20

A circular economy for all 22

Chapter 2: What's Wrong with Being Linear, Anyway? 23

We're Taking the Wrong Stuff 25

We're not importing this stuff from space 27

Everyone keeps having kids 28

We don't have as much as we thought 30

It all revolves around oil 31

We're Making the Wrong Stuff 31

You're buying trash 32

Even kids can build with blocks 33

Trying to recycle the unrecyclable 33

We're using materials that are bad for us 34

We're Wasting the Wrong Stuff 34

It all comes at a big cost 34

We're running out of room 35

It's expensive to throw things away 35

The debt collector is knocking at the door 35

Change Is Really Hard, We Know 36

If it ain't broke, don't fix it 36

Taking risks 37

Chapter 3: A Growing Demand for a Circular Economy 41

The Drive to Make Money 44

Redefining risk and liability 44

Innovating to attract new customers 46

The Drive to Be Healthier 46

Lifestyles that foster health and sustainability 46

Wellness as a priority 47

The Drive to Be in Compliance 47

Environmental, social, and corporate governance 48

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) 49

Climate and shareholders 50

A Larger Drive Toward Deep Sustainability 50

This has been brewing for a while 51

Precedents 51

Looking to the future 54

Chapter 4: From Linear To Circular: What You Need To Know 57

So Much Chaos: Understanding Entropy 58

Externalized costs 59

Linear versus circular: A hilarious-yet-depressing comparison 60

Borrow from nature, not from the future 64

Waste = Food: Redefining Disposal 66

All materials have another use 68

Product stewardship 69

Building Resilience Through Diversity: Redefining Strength 71

Responding to disruption 72

Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin' 73

Durability and reparability policies 74

Part 2: Rethinking Business For a Circular Economy 77

Chapter 5: Identifying Your Business Opportunities 79

Exploring the Benefits of Going Circular 79

Exploiting the profit opportunities 80

Reducing volatility and ensuring greater supply chain security 81

Managing the new demand for business services 81

Improving customer interaction and loyalty 83

Rethinking the Business Model 85

Building new types of capital 86 <p&...