Economia circular: o que é essa nova forma de pensar o consumo?

Circular economy: what is this new way of thinking about consumption?

Circular economy is a new way of thinking about the production, consumption and disposal relationships of everything that is produced on the planet.

It is based on the search for reducing the use of raw materials and natural resources, focusing mainly on recovery and reuse.

The model is completely related to the concept of upcycling , which we have already discussed.

The objective is to guarantee a better quality of life for people and the recovery of the environment, reducing environmental impacts and seeking to reverse harmful effects such as global warming.

Opposition to the linear concept

A good way to better understand this new model is by visualizing the way we currently consume : the linear economic model.

In this model, the most common today, the consumption chain works in a straight line, as the name suggests.

Thus, the concern is only to extract resources from nature , then produce goods to be sold and, finally, dispose of the waste.

There is no concern for the finiteness of resources (water, minerals, metals, oil, etc.) or for the recycling, recovery and reuse of what is discarded.

And, as we know, this is a model that has had a huge impact on the environment.

It is also a form of consumption that is totally dependent on the extraction of new resources, which is variable.

This generates waves of shortages and consequent increase in production costs, difficulty in accessing products for the population and other economic effects.

Furthermore, with the so-called “planned obsolescence”, in which products have a very short useful life, the incentive for unbridled consumption is increasingly greater.

As a result, garbage disposal takes on gigantic proportions.

Circular model

In the circular model, the big difference is the reuse of what would otherwise be discarded as a way of reducing several negative impacts on the environment, the economy and social well-being.

Some very practical examples are companies and institutions that reuse water, for example.

Others offer discounts and other incentives to customers who take packaging back to stores that can be recycled.

There are several possibilities for reusing resources and reusing what would previously have been just waste.

The model works in a fully integrated way and encompasses industry, architecture , art, fashion, food

You can see the application of this concept in the new trend of renting furniture , which instead of buying it can be very advantageous when changing the decor of your home or moving address!

Model origin

Although people consider the model “new”, the first ideas about it emerged in the late 1980s, with British economists and environmentalists David W. Pearce and R. Kerry Turner.

What they realized is that the current model was not sustainable in the long term. Furthermore, they used the cyclical logic of nature: where nothing is lost, everything is transformed.

The idea is that just as ecosystems regulate themselves, human beings must begin to reflect and act on their way of consuming, since the planet's resources will one day run out.

Want to read more articles like this? Visit our blog and stay up to date on all the topics!

Back to blog

Leave a comment

Please note, comments need to be approved before they are published.