A circular economy is regenerative by design and as waste free as possible. At the heart of the circular economy is the idea of moving away from linear value chains to an approach that allows to cycle products and materials and make better use of existing assets.
The world invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. Energy efficiency investments focus on buildings and transport. Unfortunately, large global disparities remain. It is important that nobody is left behind.
The agriculture and forestry sectors are responsible for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. Approaches in agriculture are about moving to systems which effectively support development and which ensure food security in a changing climate. Climate action in forestry aims to provide forestry services while maintaining or increasing carbon stock.
Emissions from the transport sector are growing faster than in any other sector. Its emissions are hardly covered by international treaties or carbon pricing schemes. Sharing models, fuel switch and lightweight vehicles are promising strategies to reduce the impact of our desired mobility, although they often bring challenging trade-offs and rebound effects.
The construction sector drives the largest extractive industries in the world, storing valuable materials for long time spans in our buildings and infrastructure. This makes it the prime target sector for circular economy strategies, while on the other hand lowering the energy consumption of buildings during their usage.
Incentivising low-carbon and circular development is about incentivising what you want more off, and taxing what you want to see less. Putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging their mitigation is one way to gradually move towards higher taxes on resource extraction and use, and lower taxes on labour.
Circular economy quick scans rely on existing data and tools to make an overview of material flows and stocks. An objective of such a quick scan could be to explore synergies between the circular economy strategy and climate policies in a jurisdiction, or to identify new interventions along a product value chain where the circular economy can help abate greenhouse gas emissions. Shifting Paradigms also develops its own tools which allow experts and policy-makers to explore and assess circular GHG abatement opportunities themselves.
This is when the focus is on a specific sector, political trade-off or strategic question. Also here the approach is to identify circular economy interventions along value chains, which can help bring down greenhouse gas emissions or enhance carbon sinks.
This is about brining to the surface what we often keep hidden. It is about what emerges when you slow down, allow yourself to look through a different paradigm.
Climate finance is about directing financial means into low-carbon and circular parts of the economy, thereby improving their competitiveness and allowing them to grow at the expense of the linear, extractive and fossil fuel parts of the economy. Due diligences look into assessing the environmental integrity of GHG abatement initiatives, their viability and the credibility of the associated counterparts.
Improvements in energy and resource efficiency can trigger rebounds. These are feedback loops which tend to reduce the environmental gains. Sufficiency is the invitation to prioritise activities which are socially and environmentally sound and set clear boundaries within which an economy can develop.
