Our global economy is burning through its resources at an increasing pace. Together with growing population, the linear economy model consisting of resource consumption, manufacturing and waste creation, has reached its limits. In order to preserve our planet for future generations, there is an urgent need to adapt our way of life to the new reality of circular economy and safe-guarding the environment in which we thrive.
The strive towards circular economy is no longer a message that is solely told by ecological activists, but also holds the manifest scientific, political economic reality that many of our resources are depleting. To give but a few examples, out of a long non-limitative list : (i) if we look at annual consumption of one of our most common elements Zinc (Zn), we will run out of our global reserves in 20 years; (ii) within the coming decades we will reach the global peak in oil production – after which an annual decline is predicted in regards with fossil resource availability, which by itself will throw the world back in an energy-driven perpetuating economic depression and galloping life cost as all of our society (including food) is connected to fossil resources; (iii) by 2050 the total mass of plastics in our seas and oceans will exceed the cumulative mass of all living organisms in those oceans; our impact on global climate is still on track towards a +3,5°C degree increase in short time-span, which will have dramatic impact on us all and those coming after us.
“Those generations coming before us at least had the excuse to say they did not know any better”, French president Macron stated at the One Planet Summit in 2017, but our generation is both blessed and cursed with the knowledge and understanding that transition towards circular economy is a prerequisite for sustaining human society.
The BioRefine Cluster Europe focuses on circular economy by production of renewable resources from biomass and/or recovering resources from wastestreams from biobased businesses (e.g. agriculture, food industry, biomaterial industries,…
See here under the Circular Economy System Diagram. Source:https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org
