To a lot of people in the developing world, and especially Sub-Saharan Africa, where desperately striving to eke a living on the World Bank’s estimation of a per capita income of $1626; and where life assumes Hobbesian dimensions – short, nasty and brutish; the phrase, circular economy, sounds, just like yet another, fanciful piece of jargon.
Quite frankly, they don’t really care about any circular economy or linear economy because their immediate priorities are survival, work (if its available!), feeding and seeing the next day. Although that’s a rather bleak depiction of the current state of affairs, nonetheless, the fact remains that the circular economy is, indeed, everyone’s business and it must be accorded serious attention by policy makers and all.
For clarity, the linear economic model of extracting resources, producing, exploiting and dumping, which underpins the built-in obsolescence product design principles is of course environmentally unsustainable for the fragile planet earth. 21st century mobile devices exemplify these environmentally unsustainable built-in obsolescence design principles. Because, the manufacturers design them in such a way as to expire after a short period.
A purchased a phone, Athena 10, in year X. By year x+2, A’s phone is outdated because the manufacturer has released a new phone Athena 12, and sleek software, that’s completely incompatible with Athena 10. Either way, A has to purchase a new phone! Invariably, Athena 10, would be discarded sooner or later. Whilst this model is profitable for the manufacturer, it harms the environment because it perversely ends up dumped (wasted) in landfill sites.
That illustration reinforces sustainable circularity or the circular economy. Because if proactive environmental sustainability initiatives are not fully embedded into laws, policies, regulatory frameworks at the national and international level; and consistently operationalised; humanity may well be accelerating, perhaps even faster, towards the adverse of effects of climate change; extensive depletion of maritime resources, mega pollution, unmanageable waste and the unintended consequences of nasty pandemics.
This segues into the kernel of a circular economy, which at its heart, reinforces the environmental sustainability canons of the 3Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. That is, reduce waste; re-use products; and re-cycle. By so do doing, there is a reduced demand for carbonization; extracting fossil fuels, gas flaring, greenhouse gas emissions, habitat disruption whilst optimising resource efficiency.
Whilst conceptual contentions subsist on the essence of the circular economy (CE) a striking exposition is highlighted in these compelling terms: as one that depicts an economic system predicated on business models which replaces the built-in obsolescence concept with the 4Rs: reducing, alternatively reusing, recycling and recovering materials in production/distribution and consumption processes, thereby functioning at the micro-level (products, companies, consumers), meso-level (eco-industrial parks) and macro-level (city, region, nation and beyond). It is geared towards accomplishing sustainable development; which implies creating environmental quality, economic prosperity and social equity, to the benefit of current and future generations (Kircherr&Ors, Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Vol 127, December 2017 at 221-227).
The logic of the circular economy is coherent. Currently, the world’s population comprises approximately 8.1 billion people, an increase of 0.88 per cent from 2022 and it keeps growing. India’s population of over 1.42 billion people is projected to exceed China’s of approximately 1.41billion 2023 for instance.
Whilst the world’s rising population necessitates an increasing demand for critical raw materials, the supply of the latter is limited. How will sustainability be embedded if the orthodoxy of a linear economy, as distinguished from a circular economy, is maintained?
In the European Union for example, the economic realities of the disconnect between the demand for raw materials exceeding its supply, has compelled some Member States to search beyond the bloc for critical raw materials. According to Eurostat, the EU imports about 50 per cent of the raw materials which it utilises, which in 2021 yielded a trade deficit of 35.5 billion euros.
In the geopolitical context, the absence of the critical raw material of natural gas has historically resulted in several EU States sourcing this essential commodity from Russia. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2021, Russia supplied circa 45 per cent of the European Union’s natural gas. Pursuant to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, those supplies were largely upended compelling those countries to seek alternative energy security compacts with other countries.
Essentially, the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines, designed to supply that commodity from Russia to Germany, via the Baltic Sea, were sabotaged in furtive underwater bombing campaigns by “interested stakeholders” in the outcome of the conflict whose motives remain contested.
The key point here is that recycling, re-use, recovering and innovation which underpin the circular economy can mitigate supply side risks notably, security of supplies, overdependency on any one nation especially when strategic national interests collide and price volatilities. Importantly, it is estimated that the circular economy could boost competitiveness, economic productivity, catalyse innovation and create circa 700,000 jobs by 2030 in the European Union alone.
Despite being the world’s largest country on account of its population, and the third largest polluter after China and the United States, India announced strikingly ambitious plans to attain net zero emissions by 2070. Net zero, according to the United Nations Climate Action, means reducing anthropogenic gases to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere, by oceans and forests for instance.
Yet, India faces real challenges in meeting its heroic zero targets on three key counts. One, the country is a rapidly developing economic powerhouse seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Squaring the circle of concurrent development and decarbonization is, a tall order for any country. India’s no exception.
Second, exponential development implies exponential energy consumption and the country’s energy demand is likely to more than double over the next quarter of a century. India’s energy infrastructure is overly carbon reliant. That mix comprises coal at a huge 57 per cent of local consumption; oil at 27 per cent and natural gas at approximately 6 per cent. The remainder 10 per cent comprises non-fossil fuels including hydro-power, nuclear energy and solar power.
Third, its strategic energy security is still predicated upon a sticky wicket, not least because China supplies over nine tenths of India’s renewable energy infrastructure supplies like lithium ion and other rare earth metals. The inference is overdependence on one country for important raw materials, which is a risky economic strategy.
Notwithstanding these pressures, the country’s strategic approach is to adopt the circular economy sustainability model. The country’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water confirms that India’s strides in enhancing solar energy (that’s reusing a natural raw material) and electric transformation (that’s reducing waste in sourcing for petrol and diesel and depleting fossils); should yield a brigaded carbon emission reduction of over 1.25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide through 2015 and 2030.
Nigeria, with a population of over 220 million people affords an interesting example too. There’s virtually no street in the country which isn’t adversely affected by blocked drains filled with plastic bottles and containers. The public awareness of the importance is quite low and the de facto model is the linear economy approach of using and dumping products, with the perverse twin consequences of maximising waste and environmental unsustainability. A lot of the waste is incinerated which defeats the very object of cutting green-house gases and carbon footprints.
According to the Pollution Control and Environmental Health Directorate of the Federal Ministry of Environment, the country generates vast quantities of solid waste as a result of the linear economy’s, take-use-dispose approach, estimated to be more than 32 million tonnes annually. The Ministry established that less than 20 per cent of the waste generated is collected through the formal system while less than 10 per cent is recycled.
The rest of the waste ends up in open and unlined dump sites, water bodies, drainages, farmland, open spaces. Burning of such wastes openly is also a common practice particularly at the dump sites where hazardous and non-hazardous wastes are co-disposed without any form of separation or segregation.
As a matter of fact, there are very few public recycling centres and this really ought to be given a significant policy boost on three counts. One, to raise public awareness and enhance environmental sustainability. Two, this is a very obvious mechanism to enhance fiscal revenue which the government at federal, state and local government levels are yet to optimise. Three, it will create employment opportunities given the very high unemployment rate which, according to KPMG’s Global Economy Outlook report, H1 2023, was projected to rise to 40.6 per cent!
Summing up, the circular economy needs to be prioritized with intentionality in the global south and further afield to enhance robust environmental sustainability, catalyse employment opportunities and optimise fiscal revenue for the central and sub-national governments across the board.
Contestable priorities subsist certainly. But then, real leadership also demands the visionary capacity to shape and execute effective policies on multiple fronts for the benefit of citizens.
Ojumu is the Principal Partner at Balliol Myers LP, a firm of legal practitioners and strategy consultants in Lagos, Nigeria.
Source: The Guardian
