The SiOO X Story – Protecting the Planet - Book - Page 27
Chapter 2
The Circular Economy
The growth of the human population and especially of the
global economy is leading to increasing pressure on the ability
of the planet to provide resources and absorb our wastes. This
problem is no longer one that we can ignore, the climate crisis is
upon us and we have to act. This question is, how do we reduce
this unsustainable pressure on our planet’s carrying capacity
but not fatally damage the global economy in so doing? The
problem is that consumption of resources and the production of
wastes is inexorably linked to economic growth. As the economy
grows exponentially, then so does the production of wastes
and the extraction of resources. This is a property of the linear
throughput system that has evolved as humanity has moved
from agriculture to the industrial economic model.
exemplified by the work of Julian Simon ‘The Ultimate Resource’,
which argued that there was always a technological solution
to these problems. Allow economic growth to continue and
the wealth created will allow for solutions to all problems to be
found. Implicit in this idea is the assumption that all capitals are
interchangeable; the loss of a natural resource can be compensated for by the spending of economic capital in amelioration.
This is the principle known as weak sustainability. Although
this might be used to fix local problems, it is apparent that the
climate crisis requires a paradigm shift in the conventional economic system.
In the economy of the future, energy will be derived from
non-fossil resources and materials will cycle within the economy rather than passing through. This idea of a circular economy
has now become mainstream. On 4 March 2019, the European
Commission adopted a report (COM/2019/190) on the implementation of the Circular Economy Action Plan. The idea behind the circular economy is to retain the value of materials,
products and services in the economy for as long as possible.
The legislative proposals on waste contained within the Action
Plan include targets to reduce landfilling, increase reuse and the
recycling of waste streams. The increasing use of timber within
the built environment will inevitably see more use of wood as
a cladding material.
The problem of the ability of the land to support growing popu
lations was the subject of the 1798 book ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’, by the Reverend Thomas Malthus FRS. He
argued that populations have a natural tendency to grow and
that if this continued, then a point was reached where the land
was no longer able to supply sufficient food to support the
people, a phenomenon called a ‘Malthusian Collapse’. His conclusion was that development of new and improved methods
of food production would inevitably lead to a growth of population resulting in an inevitable collapse as the food resources
were exhausted. His controversial ideas continued to resonate
in modern times, and similar concepts are found in the 1968
work of Paul Ehrlich ‘The Population Bomb’.
Although the environmental benefits of using timber in construction have been repeatedly demonstrated, it is essential
that these benefits are maximised by retaining the products in
service for as long as possible. As part of a materials’ utilisation
strategy, the retention of materials within the economy requires
their re-use, recycling, or cascading down the value chain. In
order to do this with wood-based products, it is essential that
the timber product is free from additives that would result in the
As the environmental movement developed in the 1970’s, in
creasing attention was directed at the exponential nature of
economic growth and how the seemingly unbreakable relation
ship with resource consumption and waste production would
overwhelm the carrying capacity of the planet, leading to a
Malthusian Collapse. However, a counter-argument developed,
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