Beyond Circularity - Do we need to ‘Shrink and Share’?
This new initiative of Circular Conversations seeks to challenge researchers, especially the younger cohort, to turn their bright minds to addressing a series of contentious topics related to the circular economy (CE). The following questions, related to my own concerns and uncertainties, seek to set the tone for an ongoing series of stimulating Research Conversations. Thus, we may all learn from each other and develop a deeper understanding of the CE and explore its implications and unknowns. After establishing the context, I pose some overriding questions, then focus upon those more closely related to my own field of interest – a circular, sufficient and equitable built environment. Let’s enjoy this journey and see where it takes us!
Setting the scene
We have responsibilities to conserve resources and the environment, to attain the Paris target of Net Zero Carbon by 2050, and to meet the SDGs by 2030 (e.g. SDG 10: reduce inequalities, SDG 12: responsible consumption and production, SDG 13: climate action). These obligations especially apply to the Global North, to enable the South to consume comparatively more to serve the needs of its burgeoning population, overcome poverty, and deal with the “systematic inequalities exposed by COVID” (Guiterres 2020). This approach was described by the Global Footprint Network as ‘shrink and share’ – shrinking the excessive ‘ecological footprint’ of countries of the North to enable sharing with those of the South –to redress the imbalance shown by the champagne glass diagram.
Worrell and Reuter (2014, 547) emphasised that the real message of importance (especially for the North) is to “use less of everything, use less energy, use less materials” a mind change probably more important than optimising recycling processes. In this regard, Allwood (2014, 450) saw reduction in service demand as the ‘gold medal’ of modern materials management, accompanied by a rebalancing between the current rich and poor. Urging caution on the “redeeming qualities of the CE”, D’Alisa (2020) lamented the lack of discussion on “the possibility of increasing unequal distribution of, and access to resources, products and services, even under circular economy scenarios” [italics added]. Others have pointed to the neglect of social and political issues in a CE, while advocating a ‘just transition’ (Schroeder 2020).
Thus, the theme of this first Research Challenge emerged: “Beyond Circularity: do we need to ‘shrink and share’?”
The ‘champagne glass’ analogy of resource consumption in relation to population (from Agenda 21, Chapter 8, UN Conference Rio, 1992 and cited by Stahel 2008)
Overriding questions
Should we go Beyond Circularity?
Circularity, the reuse of resources in closed loops and extending their life, is put forward as a panacea for gaining more value from resources, reducing waste and GHG emissions, and job creation. This may suffice in saturated markets with low levels of demand, although even then 100% reuse is unlikely. However, when consumer demand increases, it will require more resource extraction to complement circularity, that is, more material growth. Moreover, as Conversations with Tim Jackson, Alexandre Lemille and Janez Potocnik and others have highlighted, the CE often lacks societal and equity dimensions.
Is circulating resources longer enough? Should we also be striving to reduce demand for material production (Allwood 2014), as well as equal access to resources?
Is Circularity used to justify continued growth?
Prof Walter R. Stahel, founder of the circular economy, and others have emphasised that resources should not only be recirculated in closed loops, but also that consumption should be reduced. In a recent Conversation, Eva Gladek has argued that despite the fact that the circular economy can be a tool for decoupling, ‘the problem is that the way circular economy and decoupling measures are being implemented in our society are highly constrained by the growth imperative’. Nevertheless, circularity is often seen as associated with ‘resource efficiency’, that is, enabling continued growth while protecting the environment and attaining net zero carbon akin to notions of Green Growth, Decoupling, the New Carbon Economy and even the Green New Deal (Ness 2020).
But do such viewpoints of the CE perpetuate ‘business as usual’, merely playing around the edges and missing the main game – to reduce absolute resource consumption?
Rebalancing resource consumption: an issue of global ethics?
The importance of redistributing resource consumption was highlighted in the 1990s by organisations such as the Club of Rome and the International Factor 10 Club, founded by Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek and including luminaries such as Robert Ayres, Herman Daly, Ernst von Weizsäcker and Walter Stahel, recognised as founder of the CE. The Club argued that the North should reduce its consumption by 90% (Factor 10) to enable the South to double its resource use within 50 years. Reflecting this rebalancing of resource use, the International Resource Panel (2015) promoted “equal access to and/or attribution of resource consumption on a per capita basis”. The principle of equal emissions allocations per capita has also been put forward in Climate Change negotiations, despite lack of agreement on ‘common but differentiated responsibilities.’ Commenting upon the global preoccupation with reducing CO2 emissions from burning of fossil fuels, Stahel recognised that “…the key issue at stake was unbalanced consumption at a global level, an issue of global ethics”. A conversation with Ralph Thurm has posed the attention to the fundamental role of thresholds and allocations for a systemic transformation.
What mechanisms are available to redress the imbalance of resource consumption and emissions, and how can they be more effective?
What Metrics are available?
Schmidt-Bleek (1993) and others went further, developing a metric for assessing the ‘ecological rucksack’ of service delivery options. This was known as Material Input Per unit of Service (MIPs), a measure of resource efficiency, while Resource Productivity was the converse. Increasing resource productivity involves a focus upon service needs, delivering these in less resource intensive ways i.e. more service output with less resource/material input. The key to reducing demand for materials and resources is to reduce the overall demand for the actual services themselves.
Should metrics for resource productivity gain more prominence, similar to carbon metrics?
Accounting for Consumption-based emissions
Over-consumption is increasingly recognised as the root cause of climate change and emissions, including ‘embodied emissions’ associated with production and consumption of goods. However, present accounting is narrowly focused on operating and territorial emissions, enabling cities of the North to claim they are ‘carbon-neutral’ – because they have outsourced production (including emissions, resource consumption, waste and pollution) to the South. Consumption-based emissions are estimated to be 60% greater than under the present system (C40 Cities 2018).
Could accounting for such emissions enable responsibility to be sheeted home to the final consumers, 80% of whom reside in the North?
A New World Order?
According to Friant et al. (2019), the CE literature has, thus far, “not sufficiently examined the ecological, social, political and cultural implications of circularity”. Furthermore, Friant (2020) suggests that “a paradigm shift and a lifestyle transformation” is required, “moving beyond capitalism and building an entirely new system based on solidarity, care and harmony with the earth” – questions explored by ‘degrowth’ and ‘post-development’ thinkers since the 1970s. In Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary, Ziai (2019, 326) highlighted the “power of capitalism and its drive for accumulation as the cause of poverty in the South and ecological degradation worldwide”, while Bassey (2019, 3) sought to break the chains of ‘development’, which “suggests growth, expansion and spread, none of which captures the sense of justice or equity, or considers the ecological limits of a finite planet”. This leads to the following question:
Should the drive for ‘development-as-growth’ be supplanted by ‘development-as-social’ (Sachs 2019), involving a social-ecological transformation that places empathy with people and the planet first?
Implications for the built environment
Construction sector the biggest consumer
Whilst the above principles may apply to various sectors, such as manufacturing, food and agriculture, the building and construction sector is arguably the highest consumer of material resources, around 40%, and responsible for one of the highest levels of GHS emissions (about 35%). The significance of growth in resource consumption in the sector was highlighted by Ness and Xing (2017), in my book: The Impact of overbuilding on people and the planet and subsequent article: Growth in floor area: the blind spot in cutting carbon.
Is it possible to ‘shrink’ resource consumption in buildings and infrastructure while, at the same time, reduce GHG emissions?
The importance of strategic decisions: are there alternatives to ‘new build’?
In its Infrastructure Carbon Review, HM Treasury (2013, 11) highlighted that the biggest opportunity for reducing carbon was during the inception and planning stage of projects, when alternatives for meeting service/functional requirements should be considered, including ‘build nothing’ (100% saving) or ‘build less’ (80%). The most low-carbon, resource-saving and cost-effective building is one that does not need to be built! By comparison, circularity/reuse is less effective, resulting in a saving of around 60%. As Tim Jackson said, the most fundamental strategy is to re-think a product itself and ask “Is it really necessary?” “Is it an effective way of delivering that service?”
But in the built environment, most emphasis is on reducing embodied carbon at the materials level. How can this be elevated to the level of strategic decisions?
From ‘The impact of overbuilding on people and the planet’ (Ness, 2019) ©Sergiy Serdyuk, Alamy Stock Photo, 2019
Responses to COVID-19: Increased digitalisation and refurbishment
As the world grapples with COVID-19, there is an opportunity to reset and reform present approaches. The response has shown that it is possible to deliver services by digital means, such as online retail, education, health, entertainment and working from home, with less real estate and physical infrastructure (e.g. buildings, transport). Reduced investment in new properties due to COVID-19 will increase the viability of adaptation and refurbishment.
Can these trends provide an impetus to deliver services with less new resource consumption and less carbon, coupled with savings in new embodied carbon by making use of what we have?
Challenges and opportunities for the industry
The above trends, while challenging for design and construction professions, may open up opportunities to extend service offerings to clients. This may include upfront advice on development options prior to any project decision, zero carbon assessment/solutions, strategic asset management and facilities management. Maintenance, repair and adaptation of existing assets are also likely to assume greater importance, and this is claimed more employment than new construction. All this may have profound implications for construction industry education, and the need to increase the share of educational resources in the Global South.
Can more jobs be created in a circular built environment, especially one involving less new construction?
Design for life cycle changes and reuse
New facilities and infrastructures, especially to meet increasing demand in the Global South, will need to be designed for disassembly and change of use, thus extending the useful life of their structure and component parts. The concept of ‘open building’, which differentiates longer life parts of buildings from more changeable ‘infill’, will become more widely accepted. By such means, the future building stock may be much more capable of adaptation.
But how can developers and clients be encouraged to take a longer-term view, with possible extra cost upfront?
New forms of property ownership
According to the 3Ls concept of Long life, Loose fit and Low energy (Gordon 1972), coupled with that of ‘open building’ allied to Steward Brand’s (1995) notion of the 6S’s Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space and Stuff we can imagine an urban framework or long life real estate skeletal structure, supporting more flexible, modular and ‘loose’ parts of buildings such as fit-outs and even facades. This opens the way to entirely new forms of property, with the moveable parts being provided as a service (similar to rental/leasing), separate to the ownership of the base real estate.
How can the real estate industry be persuaded to undertake such a massive change, with its attendant legal, tax and other implications?
Building systems as a service
Similarly, digitally enabled services may enable parts of buildings to be identified, monitored and managed remotely, and exchanged with other facilities at the end of their first life. This was the focus of the ARUP Global Research Challenge 2017, which resulted in the development of a cloud platform for management and reuse of building components as a service. The service provider is responsible for life-cycle stewardship of the component system, taking it back for repair of remanufacture, thus greatly reducing waste and carbon (ARUP 2018). But it can be a major challenge for businesses (especially in tough times), to change their business models, and overcome barriers such as recouping upfront costs via a stream of payments.
What will it take for such a transition to building services to be accomplished?
Sustainability/green metrics: increased attention to resource productivity
Under current building/infrastructure rating tools, a project may attain the highest rating based upon ‘green features’, despite being massively over-sized and inflexible to change. Paying greater attention to ‘resource productivity’ will entail system wide reform, whereby project protagonists are rewarded for meeting their service needs with less new building mass, area and consumption of land, materials, energy and water, and for taking a life-cycle viewpoint. Recently, consideration is being given to introducing ‘carbon budgets’ for all new buildings (Giddings and Lomas 2020).
What changes would be required to green building rating tools and what are the implications for Green Building Councils and the property industry? Could carbon budgets be a proxy for resource budgets, and vice versa?
Is speculative real estate really necessary?
In the terminology of thermodynamics, ‘use values’ are associated with resources with low entropy. According to Georgescu-Roegen (1973), “Every time we produce a Cadillac, we irrevocably destroy an amount of low entropy that could otherwise be used for producing a plough or spade.” According to Altvater (1993), “entropy increase blots out the conditions for human life on the planet”. Hence,
How can grandiose resource consuming office towers, often erected to satisfy fictitious demand and provide short term profit, be equated with concepts such as ‘use value’ and ‘entropy’?
‘Shrink and share’ in the built environment
Now we return to our theme of ‘shrink and share’. In this regard, an extravagant, unnecessary structure in the North may have an indirect impact on those in the South, who could better use those resources to satisfy their basic needs; an ethical as well as an environmental issue. This inequity is more evident when such a ‘development’, no matter how green, circular and low carbon it may be, is juxtaposed with an informal settlement. In such contexts, affordable, mixed-used projects, and essential infrastructures that meet basic community needs in an inclusive and integrated manner, may take precedence.
What mechanisms can enable the principle of ‘shrink and share’ to be applied to the built environment?
Further discourse
Emerging and younger researchers, in particular, are welcome to comment upon the above, and inject their thoughts and ideas into an ongoing conversation that I shall be pleased to mediate. Hopefully, this may serve as a template for others to begin similar research conversations on circular themes.
Interested readers may also wish to access the ResearchGate platform for more in-depth research on aspects of the CE. For example, in seeking to promote discourse regarding circular futures and cross-pollination of ideas, policy options, strategies, practices and solutions, Friant et al. (2020) developed “a typology of circularity discourses, which classifies circularity visions according to their position on fundamental social, technological, political and ecological issues”.
Dr David Ness
Adjunct Professor, University of South Australia
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Ness3
https://people.unisa.edu.au/david.ness
Are you a (young) researcher working on similar topics and wishing to provide your contributions to some of the above-mentioned questions? Comment on the piece or get in touch at circularconversations@gmail.com in order to start a Research Conversation with David Ness!
Relevant Conversations for cross-contamination of ideas:
‘Meeting human needs thanks to material circularity’ - with Alex Lemille
‘Managing a Post-Growth Economy: Circularity, Productivity and Inequality’ - with Tim Jackson
‘Not yet another pill - the only way is the systemic way’ - with Eva Gladek
References
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Altvater, E. 1993. The Future of the Market, Verso, London.
ARUP. 2020. Circular cities: reduce, reuse, rebuild. ARUP Research Review 1.
Bassey, N. 2019. Breaking the chains of development, in: Kothari A, Salleh A, Escobar A, Demaria F, and Acosta A (eds), Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary (AUF).
Brand, S. 1995. How buildings learn: what happens after they’re built? 1 October, Penguin Books.
C40 Cities. 2018. Consumption-based GHG emissions of cities, Climate Leadership Group.
D’Alisa, G. 2019. Circular economy, in: Kothari A, Salleh A, Escobar A, Demaria F, and Acosta A (eds), Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary (AUF).
Friant, M, Vermeulen, W, and R Salomone. 2020. A typology of circular economy discourses: Navigating the diverse visions of a contested paradigm, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 161.
Friant, M. 2020. Response to question: ‘How can we shrink and share resource consumption between the Global North and South?’ ResearchGate, 17 July.
Friant, M, Vermeulen, W, and R Salomone. 2019. Advancing a critical research agenda on the circular economy, Conference: Sustaining Resources for the Future, the 25th International Sustainable Development Research Society Conference, Nanjing, P R China.
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Ness, D. 2020. Growth in floor area: the blind spot in cutting carbon? Emerald Open Research, January.
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