Why do we need the Circular Economy? How the Circular Economy helps us to provide more sustainable resource base for the society?

These are the questions that Ester van der Voet will answer in the following video. Ester will discuss the resource challenge that the global society is facing and the possible solution.

Ester van der Voet is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University and she has initiated two MSc programs in Industrial Ecology: an interuniversity program between Leiden University and Delft University of Technology, and an international Erasmus Mundus program with universities from Austria, Sweden, Japan, Thailand and the USA. She is a member of the UNEP International Resource Panel, where she has edited the third report of the Global Metal Flows working group.

Key points:

• The importance of the resources is increasing as they are the basis of our society providing transport, communication, food, shelter etc.
• The demand for various raw materials is growing due to the expanding population and economic development.
• So far the supply was able to meet the demand for resources which leads to multiple challenges related to the availability of raw materials, increasing waste generation and environmental pressure caused by extraction and production of resources.
• The Circular Economy is a possible solution to the above-mentioned challenges. By reusing old material the amount of new materials being extracted decreases, keeping products in use for longer would reduce waste streams and recycling is less energy intensive than primary production, which decreases the amount of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.
• Changes in society is a leading factor of transition from Linear to Circular Economy.