Circular Economy Could Bring 70 Percent Cut in Carbon Emissions by 2030

The circular economy offers opportunities to boost jobs and tackle climate change, according to study on Sweden by The Club of Rome

A new study from The Club of Rome, a global thinktank, highlights that moving to a circular economy by using and re-using, rather than using up, would yield multiple benefits.

This Swedish case study, the first in a series of reports in 2015, suggests that 2015 is a key window of opportunity to start modernizing the EU economy, while boosting jobs and tackling climate change ahead of the UN climate change conference, COP 21, in Paris in December.

It analyses the effects of three strategies underpinning a circular economy:  renewable energy, energy efficiency and material efficiency.  It concludes that by 2030, carbon emissions could be cut by almost 70% if a key set of circular economy policy measures were adopted.

In addition, caring for items through repair, maintenance, upgrading and remanufacturing is far more labour-intensive than mining and manufacturing in highly automated facilities.  In moving to a more circular economy, the number of additional jobs would likely exceed 100,000 – cutting unemployment by more than a third.

Forty years after the 1972 Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth, we are at a crossroads. Wasteful lifestyles, primarily in the industrialized countries, have caused ecosystem decline, resource constraints and an increasingly unstable climate.  Meanwhile, a growing population and much-needed increases of per-capita income in low-income countries are putting further pressure on resources.

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