amazon highlights: Moving To Finite Earth Economy - Crew Manual 2 of 3 / David Houle & Bob Leonard / 2019

Fundamental Metrics Must Change

Here are the metrics of Growth Economies. There are two types of indicators you need to be aware of: Leading indicators often change prior to large economic adjustments and, as such, can be used to predict future trends. Lagging indicators, however, reflect the economy’s historical performance and changes to these are only identifiable after an economic trend or pattern has already been established.

Leading Indicators: Stock Market Manufacturing Activity Inventory Levels Retail Sales Building Permits Housing Market Level of New Business Startups

Lagging Indicators: Changes in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Income and Wages Unemployment Rate Consumer Price Index (Inflation) Currency Strength

Interest Rates Corporate Profits Balance of Trade Value of Commodity Substitutes to U.S. Dollar Growth Economy metrics reward behaviors that lead to pollution, poor health, depression and destruction of the biosphere’s ability to support life. First, the United States has the single largest GDP in the world. It must lead the way as it represents the greatest opportunity to reach 70% clean energy by 2030.  Second, if you look at the top ten countries by GDP you will see that all except India – and still large parts of western China – are relatively wealthy. The wealthy countries must lead the way. The poor countries do not have the resources for rapid transformation.

There is a good deal of overlap between the list by GDP and the list by level of GHG emissions. Actions taken by the major polluters and largest/most resilient economies can bring the world to 70% clean energy by 2030. The implementation of a Carbon Fee and Dividend policy is the most important step to take in every major economy. Fee and Dividend is based on the Free Market Economics of Milton Friedman.  It will immediately increase the cost of carbon, resulting in a decrease in fossil fuel use and emissions. Receiving a $2,000 check for a family of four will be welcomed. Consumers/voters will support an increase to $50/60/70 a ton because their annual dividend checks would increase accordingly. This is why it must be a Fee and not a Tax, so the money goes back to the consumers and voters, not government coffers. This is a wealth redistribution from the largest emitters to the individual citizens that aligns all with the end goal of zero emissions. Every organization of every size, from individuals to the largest  multinational corporations will be rewarded or penalized on their carbon footprints. The list of concepts that all citizens should understand will include the cost to nature of agriculture, manufacturing, transportation. Education on all aspects of the Circular Economy and the deadly costs of carbon will be universal.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created in 1933 by FDR to combat unemployment. The CCC was responsible for building many public works projects that are still in use today. This is particularly relevant to today as there is so much work to be done in every country: planting trees, restoring habitats destroyed by pollution and toxic chemicals, cleaning up plastic waste, etc. These projects will put millions of unemployed and underemployed people to work. If these projects were folded into a mandatory two-year national service with the initial purpose of working on all things that will result in habitat restoration and emissions reductions, there would be an alignment that would not only train young people, but would create a society that values cooperation. By 2030, 50% of all cars in the U.S. will be electric vehicles. Subsidize, and therefore accelerate, the movement to ever better battery technology for air travel, municipal buses and trains. Incentivize private industry to support this needed and massive undertaking in every country.

The New Metrics:  “Tell me how you measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave.” – Eliyahu M. Goldratt. Moving to a Finite Earth Economy is NOT about ending Capitalism. It is recasting it with an ‘earth first’ and ‘humanity first’ focus. Possible New Metrics are:

 The Social Cost of Carbon: The social cost of carbon reflects the global damage of emitting one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accounting for its impact in the form of warming temperatures, more severe storms, rising sea levels, etc. It’s what we should be willing to pay to avoid emitting that one more ton of carbon. In real ways, this is the truest and most important metric relative to living in a carbon fueled economy.

Moving Earth Overshoot Day Back This metric addresses levels of consumption and waste. Earth Overshoot Day (the date in the current year when humanity has used 100% of the resources the planet can regenerate) is now in early August. Ideally it should be after midnight on December 31. By country there is a wide range of national Earth Overshoot Days. Honduras is the only country that is at 12/31. Luxembourg is the earliest at 2/17. Australia, Canada and the U.S. are close together at 3/12, 3/13 and 3/14 respectively. Much of Europe is May and June. China is 6/23 and Brazil is 7/26. The The bigger a country’s economy and the earlier its Overshoot date, the more that country is living beyond its resource means. Those countries must take the most drastic and immediate action.6 To no longer regard declining GDP as a negative phenomenon, we need to evolve to regarding the movement of Earth Overshoot Day back every year as a sign of success.

Percentage of Total Energy that is Fossil Fuels: The rapid conversion away from fossil fuels to all forms of clean, non-polluting energy is crucial. Currently the percentage of global energy that is obtained from fossil fuels is 77%.7 This number is now measured annually.  The 2030 goal is no more than 30% of global energy provided by fossil fuels.

Global and National Annual Totals of Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Currently humanity is emitting approximately 37 gigatons of greenhouse gases each year. GHG emissions are invisible. The several millimeter rise in sea level each year is hard to see. It is essential that these top 20 emitting countries lead the way. If the goal is to limit energy from fossil fuels to 30% by 2030, these top 20 countries, currently responsible for 79% of emissions, could get to 10% and the other 175 countries would not have to do anything at all. At the very least, the United States, China and the Eurozone must bear the largest burden as they are the largest three producers of greenhouse gases in the world – currently and historically.

Business Sector Percentages of Total Emissions: Different segments of the economy will experience different degrees of difficulty in reducing their respective emissions totals. The most straightforward position is to move on all sectors at once, keeping the overall goal in focus: lowering GHG emissions every year.

Reduction of CO2 Parts Per Million (PPM) in Atmosphere:  As of this writing, the CO2 PPM in earth’s atmosphere has reached the highest number in three million years. It is at 415 PPM. This is the critical issue relative to global warming and hence climate change.  Even dramatically reduced annual emissions will add to this PPM number. Resident CO2 continues to accumulate as CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades and even centuries. We must measure this number on an annual basis with the goal of reducing it to 350 or below by 2030

Essential Technologies

Energy: The goal is to transition off fossil fuels ASAP. Fossil Fuels. Wind and Solar- Solar and wind currently represent 7% of energy used globally6 and 10% of U.S. energy. Hydroelectric- Hydroelectric power currently supplies 18% of global energy usage. Geothermal- Geothermal currently comprises only 1% of global energy usage. Ocean Energy- It refers to the renewable kinetic energy (i.e. motion) derived from waves and tides. Nuclear- It will be an integral technology on our journey to a Finite Earth Economy by 2030. The arguments for nuclear are rational and based upon hard data and critical need. The arguments against it are based on emotion and misperceptions. Space-Based Solar Power. Energy Storage Technology. Future Sources of Energy: Nuclear Fusion- ITER will be the first fusion device to produce net energy (produces more energy than what was required to generate it). ITER will be the first fusion device to maintain fusion for long periods of time. Agricultural Technologies- The agriculture business sector is the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions and therefore a top priority to change how and where food is grown, and what technologies might help in the lowering of emissions.

Regenerative Permaculture

Lab-based Meat - The production of meat, particularly beef, comes at a high cost. It is the least efficient way to deliver nutrients to humans. It generates massive amounts of greenhouse gases in its production and transportation. Other undesirable factors of meat production include that animals must be slaughtered, and the antibiotics and growth hormones given to them at factory farms are then consumed by humans. If current meat production processes were replaced with lab-grown meat, it is estimated that 40% less energy would be required, 80% less land would be needed, and 80 to 90% less water would be used.

Transportation Automotive - 100 years ago, society moved from horse and buggy to internal combustion engine.  Now we are moving from internal combustion to electric and perhaps hydrogen powered vehicles.

Autonomous Vehicles - The technology is viable, but there will be a lag time before the public, and many legislators, are ready to accept cars without drivers on the open roads. Here are some statistics that may help. 97% of all driving fatalities globally are due to “driver error”. The other major statistic is that in the U.S. the average car is used only 5% of the time. Now, envision a reality where there are autonomous cars constantly on the streets, roads and highways 20 to 22 hours a day (autonomous EVs will drive themselves to a charging station a couple of times a day). They are always available to people who need a lift. This means that by 2030 there could be half as many cars on the road as today. People would still be able to get where they need to be when they need to get there… and they’ll spend a lot less to do so. We don’t need to spend hundreds of billions on light rail or some other costly endeavor. We have the green infrastructure in place: the Interstate Highway system! With half as many cars on the road, traffic will be a non-issue. This will allow governments at all levels to save money on unnecessary infrastructure projects and instead invest in helping citizens transition from a car culture to a shared vehicle culture.

Air Travel - The good news about air travel is that it has roughly an 81% occupancy rate, making it the most efficient in terms of passenger load. The bad news is that air travel accounts for approximately 12% of all GHG emissions. In the past couple of years there has been a nascent development of electric batteries for air travel.

Technological Environmentalism / Fourth Wave of Environmentalism

Drawdown This is the strategic, data driven effort to reduce existing and future GHG emissions by reengineering how we do things and what we can use as intelligent replacements to the current carbon intensive reality of today. It can be used as an umbrella term for any technology or process that reduces carbon emissions (whether at the source or by removing CO2 from the atmosphere).

Carbon Capture This is the process of capturing carbon that is a byproduct of fossil fuel production.  It is primarily used in the processing of “clean coal”.48  The current limitation to the growth of its use is that a C02 aftermarket has not fully developed. In addition to reuse, the carbon that is captured can also be sequestered. This technology must be further developed to increase efficiency and to lower cost. Then it must be deployed to every source of fossil fuel production. ASAP.

Sequestration This is the back end of carbon capture. It takes C02 and sequesters it in the earth, deep underground or elsewhere in a fashion that prevents the CO2 from escaping back into the atmosphere.

Carbon Offsets The idea is that if I do not have a carbon neutral footprint, then I can buy or invest in a carbon capture plan to offset my carbon emissions. Paying for the planting of trees is a simple example. A tree can consume up to 48 pounds of C02 per year.49 To improve on that, artificial trees are being produced and sold  that can absorb more than 1000 times that. The other option is to invest/buy into one of the above carbon technologies as an offset.

Direct Air Capture Direct air capture scrubs CO2 directly from the ambient air. Removing CO2 to reduce the amount resident in the atmosphere is a major goal.

Atmospheric Cleansing This is a future technology to reduce C02 in higher altitudes of the atmosphere.  There has been research done on how the upper atmosphere cleanses itself of pollutants and that it can be a balanced process.

Seawater Capture Seawater capture is akin to direct air capture, except CO2 is extracted from seawater instead of air. By reducing CO2 concentration in the ocean, the water then draws in more carbon from the air to regain balance.

Enhanced Weathering Some minerals naturally react with CO2, turning carbon from a gas into a solid. The process is commonly referred to as “weathering,” and it typically happens very slowly – on a geological timescale.

High Risk Technologies Geoengineering   Geoengineering is the creation of massive engineering projects to significantly alter Earth’s atmosphere to offset global warming.

Timelines and Attainable Milestones It is essential to have a global mobilization on all fronts. The top 10 polluting countries must take the lead and must be held accountable by the rest of the world. All metrics set forth in this book – and others that will be adopted – must be accomplished by the suggested timeline above. Daily measurements of all metrics are taken and communicated to all of humanity. Urgency must be internalized in all levels of society. Some nations will move more quickly than others. Citizens will push their political leaders to meet their national commitments.

Design and Redesign We are living in a world primarily designed for a population of 2.5 billion. In 1950 there were 2.5 billion people alive. Today in 2019 there are approximately 7.7 billion! Humanity must redesign its thinking around population. Until recently, population growth was perceived as a good thing.

First, Improving medical science and sanitation has largely extended life expectancy. Second, religions have always wanted to populate the planet with offspring (therefore increasing the number of their “faithful”). Third, an expanding population has a direct correlation to GDP. More people means more consumption, which means more production and a higher GDP

We have to completely redesign the 20th century electrical grid to the more decentralized, distributed energy landscape of this century. We need to redesign all forms of industry, transportation and daily life from being powered by fossil fuels to being powered by clean, non-polluting energy sources. It’s a gargantuan (and exciting) design effort.

Designers and engineers who use the process of whole-systems problem solving consider the relationships among complex systems, instead of focusing on individual parts of systems. This is important because challenges such as climate change represent a set of interconnected issues that can’t be solved in isolation. By taking a big-picture view and considering the whole system, the most important opportunities often arise, and can be incorporated, early in the process. By all means, we should continue to reduce, reuse and recycle; as well as develop sources of clean energy and green technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. But those are half measures. In the Finite Earth Economy, we want to continue (and expand) our current quality of life, so we should borrow design and production techniques from Mother Nature.

The collapse of physical retail in the last decade has created countless numbers of vacant big box stores. They can be converted into vertical gardens that have four to six crop yields per year. Intercropping or companion gardening intersperses different varieties of crops and plants that are mutually beneficial to each other.

Staggered planting, whether at indoor vertical farms or intercropped farms, staggers when a crop is planted. Instead of planting an entire field at once, one section is planted every couple of weeks to let the soil rest and lengthen the harvest. Indoor farms can do staggered planting year round. If there’s a glut in the market for a certain crop, the farmer can plant something else.

Urban agriculture is much less mechanized so there’s no need for the cost and debt of large farm machinery. Whole systems problem solving combined with holistic design is at the center of all that we need to do. Biomimicry and Cradle to Cradle design must be further developed, expanded and deployed as central design concepts for a Finite Earth Economy. Agriculture, the leading producer of GHG emissions must be completely redesigned. How we grow, where we grow, what we grow, and what we eat will all be redesigned. Moving to a Finite Earth Economy means completely redesigning the global economy, the biggest systems thinking and holistic design project in history.

amazon highlights: Moving To Finite Earth Economy-Crew Manual 1 of 3 / David Houle&Bob Leonard / 2019

There is no such thing as a Growth Economy without waste. We are not “saving the planet”, we are saving ourselves from ourselves. Facing climate change and slowing global warming is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. Climate Change is happening NOW. We must start by standing in forgiveness. We must forgive ourselves as we were all born into a Growth Economy/fossil fuel reality. We didn’t have any real choice. We do now and we must make the right one.

The planet doesn’t need saving. It is simply adapting to the warming that humans have created. We need to save ourselves from ourselves. Reduce our use of fossil fuels as fast as possible. At the same time, reduce all levels of consumption. Since 1950, the Parts Per Million (PPM) of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by over 60% to its highest level in at least 400,000 years! The problem is that humanity is consuming more than Earth can regenerate. As of the writing of this book, humanity consumes at the level of 1.7 Earths per year. The developed economies are now moving from an ownership paradigm to one of rental/access. Tools defined the Agricultural Age. Machines defined the Industrial Age. Technology defined the Information Age. Consciousness will define the Shift Age.

By 2030, we need to: move to 70% renewable and alternative energies globally, reduce atmospheric CO2 from 420 parts per million to 315 ppm, cut the current 37 gigatons of annual CO2 emissions by at least 50%. As a futurist, I have stated that we left the Information Age and entered the Shift Age. Ranging roughly from 2005 to 2030, this is when much of human reality shifts to the new, future reality.

Growth Economy: Every reader of this book has lived his or her life in a Growth Economy. For most of history, humans have lived in growth economies. Think about how the economic health of any developed country is measured. All the metrics concentrate on growth, expansion and output. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is an output. We measure the success of a nation’s economy by how much growth has occurred in its GDP. Our current form of Capitalism does not take into account the value of natural capital.

The Circular Economy: It espouses an economy that was to replace the produce, use and discard paradigm with a closed loop system that produced, used and then reused or reprocessed. The result would be lower consumption.

Finite Earth Economy: In a Finite Earth Economy, Earth comes first. All economic, material and energy issues attend to the needs of the planet first… then humanity’s needs. More wealth was created in the last 100 years than in all of human history. The Industrial Age delivered labor-saving technologies and spread new wealth around the globe. Three dynamics transformed this scenario.

The first is that, starting in 1950, there was a population explosion unprecedented in the history of mankind. The global population in 1950 was 2.5 billion and today it is 7.7 billion, a three-fold increase in just 70 years. The replacement rate for any population to maintain equilibrium is 2.1 children per woman of child-bearing age. In the age of climate change, lowering population growth is a major moral issue for all humanity.

The second dynamic was that, post-WWII, the United States (especially Hollywood and Madison Ave.) did a wonderful job marketing “the American Dream and the American Way of Life” around the world. If everyone on Earth lived at the American standard of living, humanity would need five Earths worth of resources to maintain equilibrium.

The third dynamic was the ever-ascending level of consumption in America. Consumption of stuff has increased geometrically since the mid-20th century.

The fourth and perhaps most significant dynamic has occurred in the last 30 years. While we were adding numbers to the total population of Earth, simultaneously people all over the world were moving up the socio-economic ladder. Hundreds of millions of people entered the middle class for the first time. Growth Economies have been the economic models throughout all history. Growth Economies, powered by fossil fuels and with an outcome of ever-increasing consumption, are the key drivers of global warming and climate change.

The combination of unprecedented economic growth, wealth creation and population expansion has accelerated consumption and resulted in unacceptable levels of waste and greenhouse gas emissions. To save ourselves from ourselves, we must move away from Growth Economies. We can no longer live on a finite planet operating in an economic model that is based upon infinite growth. Our planetary spaceship has limited resources and we must work within them to avoid aborting the mission. 

The Circular Economy:  “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” – a popular phrase from Earth Day 1970. Here is Wikipedia’s definition of a Circular Economy:  “A circular economy is an economic system aimed at minimizing waste and making the most of resources. This regenerative approach is in contrast to the traditional linear economy, which has a 'take, make, dispose' model of production. In a circular system resource input and waste, emission, and energy leakage are minimized by slowing, closing, and narrowing energy and material loops; this can be achieved through long-lasting design, maintenance, repair, reuse, remanufacturing, refurbishing, recycling, and upcycling.

Proponents of the circular economy suggest that a sustainable world does not mean a drop in the quality of life for consumers and can be achieved without loss of revenue or extra costs for manufacturers. The argument is that circular business models can be as profitable as linear models, allowing us to keep enjoying similar products and services. To achieve models that are economically and environmentally sustainable, the circular economy focuses on areas such as design thinking, systems thinking, product life extension, and recycling.” If only the Circular Economy had been more widely integrated after Earth Day 1970! Here we are 50 years later and only 9% of the global economy is Circular.

In moving to a Finite Earth Economy, we will adopt a Circular Economy reality along the way. It addresses the following issues: decreasing consumption and waste, designing products to last and to be fed back into the production cycle, ending the practices of disposability and fast fashion, and evolving past the conditioned response that something bought new is better than something bought used.  In both Circular and Finite Earth Economies, “used” is a positive term. Used means that something can be purchased without causing depletion of Finite Earth resources.  “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

Humans are the only species that creates “waste”. The Finite Earth Economy (FEE) places Earth first. That is the call to action for moving to a FEE: Earth First! Tax laws and codes at all levels of government will focus on the carbon footprint of all entities. For example, a corporation that is carbon neutral will receive a significant tax deduction. If a corporation reduces its carbon footprint at least 10% from year to year, they will receive a tax incentive. These new carbon footprint-related taxes will also apply to individuals, families and businesses of all sizes. Any entity that promotes itself as being green must be 100% carbon neutral, or they will be fined.

It would replace fast fashion with slow fashion. Instead of new “styles” every year, it will be fashionable to buy or make the most durable, high quality clothing and other products. The best designed pieces will be repairable, and at their end of life will be easily fed back into the production cycle to create a new piece. There are several macro-trends that are currently happening that align with the Finite Earth Economy: 

The Sharing Economy – Share what you own and what others own. Share almost anything such as cars, extra rooms, tools, books, kitchen utensils… anything that is only used occasionally.

Moving from Ownership to Rental – This has already happened with content streaming services.

The Sufficiency Movement – This is a spiritual and consciousness concept being adopted by many. It’s a knowing that there is enough for all and there’s no need to scramble and fight. “There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Simplifying – Is living happily with less. There’s a freedom and stress reduction that comes with downsizing… with eliminating the stuff we don’t need and creating space.

Preferring Used over New – Other than food, beverages, personal products and medicines, think used first. This will ultimately creep into the social mores of societies.

Now in 2019 there are three loose paths to 2100. They are: Catastrophic, Risky and Best Probable.

Catastrophic: Business as usual with a gradual move away from fossil fuels over time is no longer an option. Current forecasts, if we don’t take drastic action now, put the rise in temperature at 3 to 7 degrees Celsius. "Most of the planetary surface would be functionally uninhabitable. Agriculture would cease to exist everywhere, apart for the polar and sub-polar regions. The oceans would stratify and become oxygen-deficient, which would cause a mass extinction. It's pretty much equivalent to a massive meteorite striking the planet, in terms of the overall impacts." – Mark Lynas, “Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet”

Risky: We focus our energies on demonstrations, protests, and the signing of Accords as meaningful action. Slowly chipping away at the Carbon Combustion Complex, or assuming market forces will fix the problem, won’t work. This approach is too slow and takes too long. We almost assuredly will pass more tipping points that trigger runaway global warming that will take a century or more to constrain. The result will be massive suffering for man and most other species.

Best Probable Future: We must move to a Finite Earth Economy as fast and completely as possible. We accept the current reality of a 1degree Celsius warming of the surface of the planet and strive to keep that below 1.5 degrees. This path allows humanity to enjoy a thriving, evolved civilization by the end of the Earth Century.  “If the success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do... How would I be? What would I do?” –  R. Buckminster Fuller 

We are ready. Are you? Are you ready to make huge changes in your life and your business for the sake of humanity and countless other species on the planet?

 “Only in economics is endless expansion seen as a virtue. In biology, it is called cancer.” – David Pilling 

amazon highlights: Forget Mars: Circular Economy / Stephen J.Wright / 2019

The circular economy involves reinventing the way in which products are designed, created, used, maintained, and disposed. It helps us to ditch the “take, make, and dispose” culture, and adopt a “make, use, return/recycle” mindset. With a circular economy, companies have to evaluate their product design, material selection, and manufacturing processes to ensure that final products are reusable and waste can be re-engineered. The circular economy system helps society to embrace the culture of access rather than ownership. Why own something when you can access it anytime, any place? And for a fraction of the cost!

everything is interconnected — one human action triggers a vicious cycle of destruction and puts the present and coming generation at risk. A circular economy system is one that rebuilds capital and resources. It is one that ensures that human, natural, social, financial and manufactured resources are reused as many times as possible. In a circular economy, resources are reused, remanufactured, and recycled.

The circular economy system has the potential to boost job creation and reduce unemployment rates worldwide. Many repair and maintenance jobs had disappeared in the past because the culture of repair was not seen as economically viable. Circular economy solutions will also bring about a significant reduction in energy consumption globally by multiplying the productivity of resources. Of the 28 industries studied, it was discovered that all of them could benefit from adopting four out of six circular economy activities — regenerate, loop, exchange, virtualize, share, and optimize, while at least 10 of them could benefit from adopting all six processes.

The circular economy system also promotes local industry and reduces importing or outsourcing of production in many countries that rely heavily on importation. The reduced costs of production will make it more economically viable to produce locally rather than import. The wastes recovered locally will also serve as a local source of material for industries. Fewer inputs are needed, and resources are used sparingly, helping to promote resource security. When goods are recycled and re-engineered, the frequency of manufacturing activities will reduce which will require less energy and fewer resources.

There are many business opportunities in the circular economy system. The system is still new so competition is low while barriers to entry are also low. By reducing competition for raw materials, the circular economy model will force the prices of raw materials down, since there will now be plenty of alternatives. Production costs will be lower, and goods will become cheaper for consumers. Businesses will have better access and communication with their customers, this is made possible because of processes like recycling, sharing and exchanging. Experts have analyzed and concluded that the circular economy is a $1 trillion dollar industry that is expected to grow to $4.5 trillion in the next fifteen years.

Business Ideas for Retailers

Resale: One way to latch on to the circular economy opportunity is to help customers sell off the products that they no longer need, or make it easier for them to do so. The Circular Economy 100 (CE 100) program created a survey to find out what customers think about a buy-back scheme especially for clothes and electronics and: 72% said they would willingly resell their items in the stores where they bought them, if they were offered a convenient buy-back program. 67% said they would resell if they could get a good price. 59% said they would resell their items if there was a simple way to resell them on their own. 57% said they would resell if they thought that reselling the items would benefit their communities or environment. Make money from creating and coordinating a buy back system which could be through creating an app that allows buyers to find sellers. Create resale-themed social events that allow customers to come together for reselling and swapping purposes. These sales events can also be used to promote interactions with customers, launch new products and services, or pass on new information to customers.

Donating: Another pillar of the circular economy system that provides moneymaking opportunities for retailers is donation. Consumers are increasingly embracing the culture of donation because they believe that it helps to prevent environmental pollution. The CE 100 survey revealed that 70% of consumers are willing to participate in a donation scheme that ensures that excess clothing are recycled and not wasted. Another 63% said they would donate their stuff as a solution for keeping clutter out of their homes. many customers revealed that they would donate more if they had access to easier methods for decluttering and delivering the items they want to donate. Marks and Spencer’s (M&S) for instance, partners with a donation service and offers customers a $5 gift card for each donation they make.

Recycling: Innovative recycling plays a great role in the circular economy system. The circular economy system ensures that products are collected at the end of their useful life and fed back into the system.

Maintenance and Repairs: Maintenance and repair services are one of the core aspects of the circular economy system. Retailers can take advantage of this growing industry by starting a repairs and maintenance services within their business niche. No matter what you sell as a retailer, whether it is clothes, wristwatches, shoes, electronic gadgets or even books, there is always room for an additional repairs and maintenance service in your business as an extra revenue stream.

Sharing/Rental Services: Product as a service is another core area of the circular economy. The culture of sharing rather than owning will be largely promoted and businesses built around creation of sharing and rentals will be able to make a lot of profit.

Biodegradable Materials: Biodegradable packing materials are already selling like hotcakes at the moment as many manufacturing companies are embracing the use of eco-friendly materials. However, the demands for these materials are only going to increase as the circular economy system takes over.

Virtualization: The most important reason why people use transportation is to get themselves to their places of work or business. They have to board a bus, drive their vehicles or find any other means of commuting to work besides walking-which is just not the most popular way of commuting now. If people are able to work from home efficiently or take classes at home, they will not need to commute to school work.

Research/Consultancy Services: The circular economy is still in its infantile stage, and there is still a lot of research that needs to be done.

Business Ideas for Manufacturers

Manufacturing Hub: Every manufacturing company wants to build its own factory, but we already know how much damage they can cause to the environment and the threat that they pose to our natural resources. What if there was a way for manufacturers to come together and share factories and equipment instead of building several individually-owned factories? These shared factories will be equipped with tools and machines that use environmental-friendly inputs and processes, and do not negatively impact the environment so much. Manufacturing can also be done simultaneously in order to reduce energy consumption and resource utilization.

Industrial Symbiosis: In the circular economy system, one manufacturer’s waste is another manufacturers input but there must be an easier way for these companies to find each other and do business together. You can easily sell off your own waste to businesses that need them, and help other businesses with waste and residues to find one another.

Circular Subscription Concept: For the circular economy to be effective, goods must have very long, useful lives as a way to reduce production frequency. But at the moment, many of the goods that are being manufactured in the market today are not really designed to fit into long-term usage.

VIGGA is an organization that promotes the sharing of clothes by using high quality materials to make them. The clothes are designed in a specific way so that they can be passed down from one sibling to the other without fading or having any form of wear and tear. Parents are required to subscribe monthly to get a fresh supply of clothes — a $20 subscription gets them 20 items of clothing in the size of their oldest child who can now pass it down to the younger siblings. In cases where a child doesn’t have younger siblings to pass clothes on to, the clothes are replaced when they get too small and the old ones are collected, refurbished and professionally washed and taken care of so that they can be delivered to another child. Experts have explained that this circular method of clothes subscription can reduce textile waste by more than 70%. This is an example of how a subscription system can work for manufacturers in the circular economy.

Biodegradable Materials: The biodegradable packaging products industry is currently worth more than $300 million dollars, and this is an industry that is expected to explode when the circular economy system takes over. There is still a lot of room for manufacturers to research and develop safe materials that can be made into biodegradable packaging.

Apply Circular Economy Processes to Your Business

There are six circular economy processes, six pillars of the circular economy system. Joining the circular economy revolution starts with finding out ways to apply these processes to your business. The six processes are:

Loop: This involves feeding back waste products into the production system. This could be your own company’s system or you could sell the waste to another organization who would use it as raw materials.

Exchange: Encourage and develop a culture of exchange amongst your consumers. Rather than have them buy the latest model of your product every year, leaving the old models to rot at home and pile up in landfills, you can develop an exchange system that allows customers to bring in their old items in exchange for some significant discounts when they want to acquire newer models.As a business, you should also build a culture of exchange where you can encourage suppliers of equipment, tools and parts to allow you to exchange old ones for new ones rather than purchase new ones every time.

Virtualize: Businesses don’t have to be conducted under the same roof anymore. It is now possible for employees to work from home, which will save the company a lot of overhead costs. It will also save the environment because the use of transportation will significantly reduce. Look into your business and see if there are any processes that can be virtualized. You don’t necessarily need an accountant as you can hire a virtual accountant instead. You can get virtual assistants, virtual secretaries, and freelancers to handle most jobs these days. You should only hire full-time, on-site employees when it is impractical to virtualize or use freelancers.

Share: Your business should also build a culture of sharing and borrowing. Consider renting equipment and sharing with other companies instead of owning everything.

Optimize: Optimize every single resource available to your business. Don’t neglect or overlook anything — you should always think of multiple ways to use all resources. If your business uses water, think of ways to recycle and treat your wastewater so that it can be put into other use that will help to cut down the amount of freshwater your business is covertly using.

Regenerate: The sixth and most important process of the circular economy system is regeneration. It may not be possible to refurbish and convert all old products into new ones, but there may be some components or parts that you can use as raw materials in making new products.

Explore New Business Opportunities: The question is —

what opportunities and ideas lie within your business and industry that you can explore?

How can you turn your wastes into money?

What environmental challenges can you solve in exchange for profits?

Redesign Your Products and System: Only products that are designed for long-term use will be able to compete in the circular economy market as consumers will start shifting towards purchasing goods that are designed for long-term use.

Are your products and packaging materials designed to last a long time?

Are they biodegradable?

Embrace Energy-Saving Equipment: You should consider doing an energy audit of your company, and eliminating all the systems, equipment, and processes that are wasteful so that you can replace them with more efficient ones.

Update Your Company’s Core Values: This should be included in the company culture and your organization’s core values so that it reflects in all decision-making processes.

Train Your Employees: Waste prevention should become part of company culture, both employees and managers should be proactive in looking for ways to make the company fit in, profit more, and thrive in the circular economy.

Identify Organizations That You Can Form a Symbiotic Relationship With: In the circular economy, collaboration will become more important than competition. You should start making a list of companies that you can form a symbiotic relationship with.

Which companies have what you need?

Which companies need your waste as raw materials?

 Some of them may reject your proposal now but when the circular economy revolution begins, many of them will remember you, and will be interested in forming a symbiotic relationship with you.

Rent or Share, Don’t Own: Businesses can also save money when they rent equipment rather than buying it, or share with other companies instead of owning. The next time you want to upgrade your company’s tools and equipment, be sure that there are no alternatives for sharing or renting before you opt for ownership.

Sell Your Wastes: Remember that waste will become almost nonexistent in the circular economy so look into all of your systems and processes — all of those things you identify as waste; you should do extensive research to see if there are businesses that can pay you for them. Basically, turn your waste into a source of income for your business.

Build a Closer Relationship with your Consumers/Customers: The easier your access is to them and the more they like and trust your brand, the easier it will be to access whatever inputs they can contribute to your business and to the circular economy system.

Create Your Action Plan and Milestones: When you have identified the role your business will play to make the circular economy work, how it will affect your business, and how you can profit from it, you will have to create an action plan and integrate it with your business plan.

Financial Challenges: Don’t wait until it becomes a trend or until your old system becomes archaic to start making the necessary changes and improvements. Starting now when many organizations haven’t even caught up to the trend yet will save you a lot of money in the future and will save your business from disruptions or complications further down the line.

Research: As with any revolution, there will be a lot of learning and relearning involved. If your business is in an industry with a lot of major players, then you might not have to worry about much.

Technical Skills and Know-How: There could be a need to conduct several training programmes for your employees, to educate them about the circular economy and equip them to be able to use the new methods, equipment and policies that your company and other organizations will be using in the circular economy. These programmes may cost your business a lot of money.

Legal Challenges: Businesses will now depend on one another a lot more than we’ve seen in the past which leaves room for many legal loopholes.

Quality Control Issues: Using waste products from another organization as raw materials for your products, takes quality control challenges to a whole new level.

amazon highlights: The Circular Economy / Ken Webster & Ellen MacArthur / 2016

Simple -> Complex

Equilibrum -> Disequilibrum

Linear -> Non-linear

Mechanistic -> Behavioral

Efficient -> Effective

Predictive -> Adaptive

Independent -> Interdependent

Individual ability -> Group diversity

Rational calculator -> Irrational approximator

Selfish -> Strongly reciprocal

Win-lose -> Win-win or Lose-lose

Competion -> Co-operation

In Natural Capitalism, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken explore how this abundance can be built by implementing four reinforcing shifts, not just one, but all four, to create a positive cycle.

Shift 1: implement resource efficiency – actually ‘radical resource efficiency’ not the few per cent kind from the picking of a few low-hanging fruits around the business. Resource efficiency is a big favourite, as we shall see: design to recover materials; design for disassembly; design for cleaner material flows and shared standards; and design for remanufacturing. They can all cut energy use, maintain product quality and cut waste.

Shift 2: move to biomimetic modes of production. Use the ‘everything is food’ notion to redesign, and design out waste.

Shift 3: move to providing services rather than goods. There are various elements to this – the performance economy, other product-service systems and more recently the explosion of interest in how information technology can furnish access to products and assets for short periods of time with low transaction costs. ZipCar, Lyft and AirBnB are examples.

Shift 4: reinvest in natural capital. To create additional flows of materials and energy from rebuilt or restored/maintained capital stocks over time. To support diversity and hence creativity and resilience (two vital functions). Others add ‘social capital,’ the ability of individuals and communities to add value in what they do for each other – this is an oft-cited feature of the so-called ‘sharing economy.’

Key ‘Cradle to Cradle’ principles include:

• All materials flow in one of two cycles: biological (can be safely decomposed through the biosphere) or technical (non biodegradable, kept at high quality and away from the biosphere in their own industrial cycle)
• Everything is food
• Shift towards clean energy, essentially renewable
• Celebrate diversity (since it is a source of both creativity and resilience in systems)

The prosperity principle is ‘we’re all better off when we are all better off,’ or, to use living systems insights, ‘healthy trees are found in healthy forests’.

A circular economy is one that is restorative by design, and which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value, at all times. 

• Energy in surplus is a precondition, eventually mostly renewables (using flows not stocks)
• Waste = food (everything is ‘food’). An upcycle, it (re)builds natural and social capital and maintains it
• Money as a medium of exchange (as credit, it leads the cycle)
• Markets work if prices act as messages and reflect the full costs
• Effective flows not just efficient (optimise thewhole not the part)
• Celebrates diversity for reasons of creativity and resilience (to keep a dynamic system ‘up’ but adaptive)
• Led by business for a profit but within rules set by an active citizenship in a flourishing democracy.  Democracy requires relative abundance not scarcity in order to thrive. 

Wages, now stagnated as a proportion of the economic pie and inflation-adjusted, have not risen significantly since. Profitability increased markedly across the board however, as productivity kept rising, as did inequality of income. Economic growth has largely become jobless growth backfilled with increasing numbers of part-time, short-contract and low-paid workers. These workers do not make confident consumers.

Sufficient wages overall, however, are needed to buy all the products being produced and if there are more goods but less spending power, even if cheaper goods arrive from abroad, it’s a problem. Mass production requires mass consumption, which in turn requires credit, both secured and unsecured, for producer and consumer.

Other social trends add to a worrying picture: increasingly ageing populations and rising unemployment – particularly among the under 25s – are calling on more public provision just as public funds are strained in the aftermath of rescuing the financial sector. The golden generations of those in adulthood in Europe between 1947 and 1979 and in the credit expansion phase 1979–2008 were enjoying a linear economy as good as it (ever) gets.

The circular economy refers to an industrial economy that is restorative by intention; aims to rely on renewable energy; minimises, tracks, and hopefully eliminates the use of toxic chemicals; and eradicates waste through careful design.

The term goes beyond the mechanics of production and consumption of goods and services, in the areas that it seeks to redefine (examples include rebuilding capital including social and natural, and the shift from consumer to user).

circular economy advocates the need for a ‘functional service’ model in which manufacturers or retailers increasingly retain the ownership of their products and, where possible, act as service providers – selling the use of products, not their one-way consumption.

This shift has direct implications for the development of efficient and effective take-back systems and the proliferation of product- and business model design practices that generate more durable products, facilitate disassembly and refurbishment and, where appropriate, consider product/service shifts.

The circular economy is based on a few simple principles:

DESIGN OUT WASTE

BUILD RESILIENCE THROUGH DIVERSITY

WORK TOWARDS USING ENERGY FROM RENEWABLE SOURCES

“Shifting taxation from labour to energy and material consumption would fast-track adoption of more circular business models; it would also make sure that we are putting the efficiency pressure on the true bottleneck of our resource-consuming society/economy – there is no shortage of labour and (renewable) energy in the long term.”

THINK IN ‘SYSTEMS’

Effectiveness is the sweet spot where resilience and efficiency interplay: efficiency (doing things right) is welcome, but in the service of effectiveness (doing the right thing), with the prime objective of ensuring the business fits the economy.

THINK IN CASCADES

• Externalize cost -> Internalise cost
• POS=point of sale -> POS=point of service
• Create waste -> Reduce waste
• Global scale -> Local scale
• Standardization for ease of consumption -> Standardization for ease of repair/reuse
• Fast consumption -> Slow consumption
• Private cost -> full cost of life cycle
• Tax on labour -> tax on non-renewable energy/waste

“Scientific problem solving is done by analysis, while designers problem solve through synthesis.”

The strongest trees are in the healthiest forest.

“Much of the learning we offer today is still grounded in the perceptions and practices of the bygone industrial age. In order to free education from the bondage of the past a major shift has to take place, not only in the way we perceive the role and function of education but also in the learning experiences we should offer”

“The goods of today are the resources of tomorrow at yesterday’s prices.” Walter R Stahel

A circular economy is about economics and profit maximization. From an economics view, maintaining value and performance of stock replaces value added of flow, and utilisation value replaces exchange value as the central notion of economic value. We know how much money governments spend on building schools and employing teachers, but we do not know if as a result the students are better prepared for life.

A circular economy is about material and resource sufficiency and efficiency. Two distinctively different types of resource efficiency govern the circular economy: loop 1 in the graphic opposite is about resource sufficiency in the reuse and service-life extension of manufactured capital, loop 2 is about material efficiency in recycling materials (molecules). The strategies of loop 1 are product specific – re-refining engine oil, solvents and other products with a catalytic function need a different approach from the service-life extension activities for buildings or mobile durable goods. The strategies of loop 2 are material specific – metals, ceramic materials and plastic use processes of physical and chemical recycling often derived from manufacturing processes, as well as new processes such as the depolymerisation of polymers. Higher resource efficiency also means reduced costs for material and energy procurement, as well as for waste disposal, waste water treatment and emissions.

A circular economy is about an intelligent use of human labour– job creation in a regional economy. Work is the most versatile and adaptable of all resources, with a strong but perishable qualitative edge: (a) it is the only resource capable of creativity and with the capacity to produce innovative solutions, and (b) human skills deteriorate if unused – continuity of work and continued learning are necessary to maintain skills and upgrade capabilities.

Retained ownership of goods and embodied material provides future resource security. Economic actors retaining material ownership over the full life of their products gain a future resource security but accept a liability for the performance of their goods. Such a performance economy is based on the triple objectives of more growth and more jobs in combination with substantially reduced resource consumption. This triple objective can be achieved through three new business models: producing performance, selling performance and maintaining performance over time.

Success is measured using two new metrics in the form of absolute decoupling indicators: value per weight (USD/kg) and labour-input per weight (man-hours/kg).

Selling performance differs according to the characteristics of products and is widely present in today’s economy: selling goods as services by operating private and public networks (railways, telecom, motorways, airports); chemical management services and rent-a-molecule; energy management and integrated crop management services; rental and operational leasing of real estate; selling custom-made indoor climate for energy companies; private finance initiatives (known as PFIs) as a strategy to sell the utilisation of infrastructure according to the ‘consumer pays principle’, such as the French and Italian toll motorways; facility management of real estate and industrial plants; textile leasing (professional attire, hotel and hospital linen). These are but a few examples of the business model of selling performance, which also include rent-a-wash and chemical leasing, as well as renting fashionable consumer goods (taking the waste out of fashion, see websites to rent ladies’ handbags).

Selling performance is the most profitable and most material-efficient business model of the circular economy, as it is built on exploiting the small loops. It focuses on utilisation optimisation and exploits resource efficiency as well as sufficiency and prevention options to gain financial advantages and higher competitiveness. And it can be applied to all types of goods.

Retaining ownership of their goods and embodied resources over the full life of their products gives corporations in times of rising resource prices a high future resource security and resource price guarantee as well as a competitive cost advantage against throughput-based competitors, along the lines of: “The goods of today are the resources of tomorrow at yesterday’s prices”.

Buying performance is the demand-side strategy equivalent to selling performance. Buying goods as services creates the same resource efficiency advantages and can be regarded as a new green public procurement policy.

Policy for material efficiency: the role of sustainable taxation and sustainable framework conditions. Sustainable politics should build on simple and convincing principles, such as: do not tax what you want to foster, punish unwanted effects instead. Also, it should promote sustainable solutions. Ideally, sustainable solutions create self-reinforcing virtuous circles, which guarantee their longevity.

Not taxing renewable resources, including work, and taxing non-renewable ones instead, creates virtuous self-reinforcing circles, by creating incentives to work more (no penalty for higher income) and by creating more wealth from less new resource input (increasing caring in resource use, including long-term resource ownership).

Sustainable taxation should reward desired developments and discourage unwanted effects of activities.

In a sustainable economy, taxes on renewable resources, including work – human labour – are counterproductive and should be abandoned. The resulting loss of state revenue could be compensated by taxing the consumption of non-renewable resources in the form of materials and energies, and of undesired wastes and emissions. Such a shift in taxation would promote and reward a circular economy with its local low-carbon and low-resource solutions. Taxes on non-renewable resources could be charged in a similar way to today’s Value Added Tax (VAT), and also applied to imported goods.

A sustainable tax policy of not taxing renewable resources, including work, constitutes a very powerful lever to accelerate, boost and generalise the circular economy and its positive impacts on resource security and regional job creation, while simultaneously reducing GHG emissions.

If prices are messages between buyers and sellers, public and private, then ideally they should reveal the full costs of resources if they, and the markets of which they are an expression, are to be effective. Two problem areas particularly stand out. Firstly, the effect of taxes on wages and salaries acting as a disincentive to using labour. Walter Stahel claims that a shift in taxation to non-renewables and waste is one of the key drivers for change. Taxes could focus on the non-renewable, on unearned income and on waste streams.

A second problem is so-called perverse subsidies. This is where non-renewables and stocks of natural capital (soils, fisheries, groundwater, forests) are exploited at prices which are below market levels and which probably already inadequately reflect the true value of the resources.

BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS COMPLEMENTARY CURRENCY

Imagine grain is sold in the normal way to a brewery. It makes use of the grain but 80% of the physical material is still existent at the end of the brewing process, but this has a low value conventionally speaking. Introduce a brewery feedstock waste currency. The brewery now has a product for sale in, let’s call it, ‘Points’. A mushroom grower buys the spent grains with Points and knows that the bio-substrate left after mushroom growing on it can also be sold, in ‘Points’ (the mushrooms are sold conventionally). Then the substrate is used by another farmer as a soil improver to fertilise and rebuild soils. The burying of such bio-substrate in excess of what this other farmer needs to produce a crop like last year (the capital formation) can be offset against taxes. All along the chain, taxes can be paid in Points to some degree so that the creation of the ‘Points’ is extinguished ready for another cycle. Thus a business-to-business complementary currency eases and encourages these material flows, and its circulation is ensuring that the soils are rebuilt – rebuilding natural capital.

A circular economy is not primarily about technical materials and recycling/recovering them while moving to renewables. It is a different way to see the economy which includes the material but is not limited by it.

Civilisation is based, after all, on the word ‘civis’ or citizen, but set in a collective context of other citizens. We create civilisation by participating and routinely contrast it with anarchy (no order) or tyranny (no freedom). Civilisation is a form of ordered complexity. It is what we value the most and yet find so easy to destroy.

‘do good’, rather than ‘ do less harm’.

Beinhocker and Hanauer put it like this: “We… develop a view of the economy as an evolutionary system of cooperative problem solving (…). We define prosperity as ‘solutions to human problems’ and argue that cooperation is the key to solving more and more complex problems thus increasing prosperity.

here is a short summary from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s contribution to an Aldersgate Group report which reflected on the kinds of skills needed for the future. The chapter is Leadership for a Circular Economy:

“Below we lay out our future vision as to what skills development will look like as we move towards a circular economy, to ensure the leaders of the future are skilled appropriately. We need to support the learners of today to become:

• Systems thinkers – At present much learning and training is specialist. Whilst specialist knowledge and technical skills will always be important it is essential to see the wood for the trees. Systems thinking at all levels enables people to take a broad, holistic view thus enabling them to make connections and see possibilities, to adapt in response to feedback.
• Pro-active, independent enquirers – Small children are naturally inquisitive. As they progress through formal education and training this curiosity is burnished and encouraged. Learners and their teachers are rewarded for taking risks, for exploring issues from different perspectives, for making reasoned judgements.
• Self-managers – Learners organise their own time, establish their own priorities and are able and willing to change in the light of feedback. They look actively for fresh opportunities, and manage their own learning to be able to rise to new challenges.
• Creative innovators – No one has the monopoly of wisdom. As we explore the era post cheap oil and materials with its new and challenging predicaments, education and training aim to develop creative people who can reframe the way we think, come up with novel ways of optimising systems and creating multiple benefits for a wide range of stakeholders including those as yet unborn.
• Team workers, effective participators and empathetic colleagues – People are social beings and formal education empowers learners to be empathetic, to respect the views of others and to contribute their own views, knowledge and skills clearly and with confidence. For this they need mastery of language and mathematics. They are able to work collaboratively and resolve disputes in which they are themselves a party.
• Reflective practitioners committed to lifelong learning – Systems without feedback are stupid, by definition, so feedback loops are essential to all meaningful learning. Learners develop the habits of self-monitoring and reflection, listening to and offering constructive criticism, and making changes. This never stops and formal education feeds into the greater project: lifelong learning.”

 Rebalancing the skill matrix:

• Problem solving -> Problem appreciation and reframing
• Analysis -> Synthesis
• Reductionism -> Whole system emphasis
• Closed and immediate cause and effect -> Multiple influences through time and space
• Individual learning -> Team or group learning
• Being competitive -> Competitive and collaborative
• Emphasis on teacher transmitting predetermined knowledge to students -> Learning thru enquiry with appropriate mentoring
• Rooted in subjects or diciplines -> Meta-learning 

“Prosperity in human societies can’t be properly understood by just looking at monetary measures of income or wealth. Prosperity in a society is the accumulation of solutions to human problems.

A REGENERATIVE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

can be seen as the effective flow of materials, energy and information in relation to maintenance or increase of stocks of capital: ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, HUMAN AND NATURAL. 

• It uses insights from the functioning of non-linear systems – feedback-rich systems, and especially living systems – as a framework for thinking.
• Its study is likely to have in mind nested systems (fractal scale, diverse periodicities) with histories and entrainment but also emergent properties and the possibility of evolution.
• Characterisation: the bigger picture, the longer term and by intention (design).
• The circular economy can be explored through a number of identities and one related shift. In a circular (feedback-rich) system the endless transformation means that one side of the equation has an intimate relationship with the other if it is to ‘work’ optimally as a system.
• Using the three categories of materials, energy and information and informed by systems thinking, the four identities fall into place. 

MATERIALS

WASTE = FOOD

Materials flows are ideally in either biological or technical cycles

WASTE = FOOD  BIOLOGICAL

This is a consumer pathway Biological materials cascade Value is extracted in stages towards the final decomposition and reuse in the system. Eliminate toxics.

WASTE = FOOD TECHNICAL

This is a user pathway. Technical materials can cascade Value is related to maintenance of quality and embedded energy for defined use periods. Upcycling (adding quality or upgrading) is possible with sufficient surplus energy

ENERGY

SHIFT > RENEWABLES

A progressive shift towards renewables over time, Assisted by lowered energy thresholds via the impacts of better design and remarketing, reuse, refurbishment, repair and remanufacturing and the continuing fall in price for renewables. Use of current solar income not stored (i.e. fossil fuels)

INFORMATION

PRICES = FULL COSTS

MONEY = MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE

DIVERSITY = STRENGTH

Markets are effective arbiters of resource allocation when rational decision-making is possible. Prices are messages and therefore need to accurately reflect all costs.

MONEY = MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE

Materials and service flows require appropriate and sufficient medium of exchange to be effective  - includes complementary currencies.

DIVERSITY = STRENGTH

A dynamic relationship between efficiency and resilience. The role of diversity in feedback–rich systems is to provide both resilience and innovation (creativity and its application) in response to change.