What is the circular economy and why should you care? It was the question posed to attendees of Spring Fair this week when Products of Change’s Helena Mansell-Stopher and circular economy ambassador, James George took to the Responsible Retail Stage.
Charged with turning this ‘nebulous concept’ of the circular economy into a tangible topic for Spring Fair visitors, James tackled the linear economic model of take, make, waste head-on when he billed it as “no longer fit for purpose” in society today.
“The linear economic model has been fantastic. It’s created trillions and trillions of dollars in the economy and has lifted billions out of poverty,” he told audience members. “But it’s never going to work for the long term, because it’s built on the principle of infinite resources to take from.
“But the problem is, we live on a finite planet.”
Both Helena and James addressed the issue that consumer mindset will need to shift for the circular economy to become a successful model, pinpointing that reuse and refill needs to be normalised in society first and foremost.
“The most fundamental principle of the circular economy is that it eliminates waste. We have focused so much so far on what to do with our waste at the end of a product. But we need to be designing waste out of our products from the outset.
“Consumer mindset and normalising habits like reuse and refill is fundamental to driving this. Consumers can then start to feel empowered to use their power of influence to nudge the big corporations towards these circular models themselves.”
The duo used the platform given to them at Spring Fair this week to announce the launch of a special project with Hyve Group – the organiser behind Spring Fair – to deliver a series of whitepaper educational resources for retailers and manufacturers, tackling the topics of: The Pathway to Sustainability, Legislation, Consumer Trends, Greenwashing and the Green Claims Code, and the Circular Economy.
The whitepapers are available to all attendees of Spring Fair and can be accessed via the Spring Fair website. Products of Change are headline partners of Spring Fair’s Power of One campaign and as such are hosting drop-in sustainability 101 sessions over the course of the show this week.
