The Circular Economy

CircularEconomy

Implementations of a CE are occurring whether people are conscious of the model or not. To eliminate the issue of excessive waste, governments, businesses and consumers alike must target all operations and activities towards the communal goal of sustainability. Failure to do so by any one of these will be detrimental as each is highly influential to another. Though gradual adoption shall continue, as society realises the potential of a CE, it still shall not be fully adopted for a number of years due to societies self-focused mentality and lack of knowledge.

Businesses shall continue to look at innovative ways of using waste as a raw material, alternative business models and technology following the consumer demand for transparency however greater cross-sector links are vital in order to share knowledge and to make connections between one industries outputs to become another’s input.

Due to digital connectivity, consumers are benefiting from more peerto-peer exchanges which they’ve embraced due to both monetary and convenience costs of their purchase (Keller 1958) being benefited. On the other hand, when buying from brands, this need for convenience paired with their ‘desire for new’ (Campbell 1992) as well as their perception of quality (Stahel, 2016), inconsistencies arise between mentalities regarding sustainble practice and actual purchase behaviour. This is the primary factor which must be targeted in order for a CE to be further adopted in the future and for the issue of excessive waste to be eradicated.