Circular Economy to Ease Online Retail's Parcel Waste Woes

Huidu Environmental: Creating a circular economy to ease online retail's parcel waste woes

Aug 28, 2019

Amid rising environmental consciousness in China, a pair of logistics and supply chain industry veterans have come up with a novel system to recycle courier parcel packaging more effectively and sustainably.

China handles the most number of parcel deliveries in the world, with 50bn parcels sent in 2018 alone. That’s 40% of the global business, exceeding the total volume handled by Japan, the US and the EU combined. In 2016, China’s courier parcels consumed 17bn meters of tape, 8.2bn plastic bags and 46m tons of cardboard boxes, equivalent to timber from 72m trees.

Spotting the need for an economical circular economy in China to help mitigate the environmental burden of such staggering volumes of packaging waste, veteran logistics operator Chai Aina, supply chain specialist He Guanghui and PR expert Huang Xianfeng founded Huidu Environmental in August 2017.

The startup combines eco-friendly packaging with a large network of local recycling services that makes it easy for consumers to participate. This creates a smart sustainable model that also helps logistics companies cut costs and revamp courier services to meet global environmental standards.

With seed funding of RMB 10m in 2017 and Series A funding of nearly RMB 100m in January 2019, Huidu is fast expanding nationwide. China Post EMS, e-commerce giants JD.com and Suning and two of China's top five logistics companies YTO Express and STO Express are now all using Huidu's green boxes.


Building recycling eco-systems

Reusing courier parcel packaging is not new. E-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com, and leading delivery services companies like SF Express, have already begun using more eco-friendly packing materials. But Huidu seeks to optimize the whole recycling process. The biggest difficulty for many companies is the management of the recycling operations network and recycling processes.

“There's a primary difference between green, recyclable boxes and traditional packages. In the past, we throw them away after one-off use. Now we have to return them after rent and use,” said the company's CEO Zou Tao, an e-commerce veteran. Huidu's rent business model means that customers are responsible for returning the boxes after use.

With 2m Huidu boxes already circulating in the market, it’s a huge challenge to ensure that the recycling system works sustainably. A Huidu subsidiary manages the logistics for the recycling process. It has 19 operations centers nationwide to focus on box recycling, reaching out to remote areas like Xinjiang, Tibet and Hainan. Huidu also cooperates with other logistics companies to regularly visit the customers to collect the empty boxes.

In April 2018, a smart recycling locker program Polanwang was launched to recycle Huidu boxes, conventional delivery boxes and batteries. The company also plans to expand its recycling facilities to cover local communities, business districts and convenience stores. This will make it easier for more individuals and small businesses to participate in the collection and return of recyclable packages and other renewable materials.


Reusable, convenient and cost-saving

The Shanghai-based Huidu splits the recycling services into three types. For the face-to-face deliveries such as food and drinks, the deliverymen will bring the boxes back directly after the deliveries. For the deliveries to lockers, the boxes are left behind to allow recipients to get the goods later. Customer guidance notes are also printed on the boxes to remind the recipients to leave the empty boxes in the lockers for collection by the delivery companies.

For the deliveries that need recipients to check and sign later, the recipients may choose to recycle the box when placing their next orders. Huidu will label those boxes to inform the couriers to collect the boxes when delivering the next order. The deliverymen will be given a monetary bonus if they use these boxes to deliver and return.

To popularize the use of the green logistics boxes, Huidu has come up with reusable, durable, convenient and cost-saving boxes. Huidu has patented three kinds of boxes: ZerO Box for electronics, clothes and other consumer goods; Cool Box with food-grade inner membrane for fresh food and waterproof ZerO Bag for files and documents.

The boxes have a locking design that is self-sealing without using any tape or glue. They are made of non-toxic polypropylene that can be recycled and melted in a furnace for secondary use. Records show that the boxes currently used in the market can last for four to seven months on average, with some lasting for one year and even reused for over 80 times.

Degradable boxes have existed in the market for many years but are not widely used because of the high cost, about 5–10 times more than that of conventional cardboard boxes. However, the high reuse rate of each box will reduce the cost per use by 30%, making it a great money-saver after the price hikes of cardboard boxes in recent years.


Sumber :
https://www.compasslist.com/insights/huidu-environmental-creating-a-circular-economy-to-ease-online-retails-parcel-waste-woes

Linier Economy vs Circular Economy

Indonesia memiliki segudang permasalahan lingkungan yang terus-menerus menghantui pembangunan kita, salah satunya soal sampah. Model linear economy yang bersifat take – make – dispose yang kita anut sejak beberapa dekade terakhir telah menampakkan konsekuensi yang tidak menyenangkan saat ini. Beberapa tahun terakhir, para peneliti lingkungan dan ekonomi memandang konsep ini sudah tidak sesuai dan harus mulai ditinggalkan serta beralih ke konsep lain.

Pada 2017, the British Standards Institution (BSI) meluncurkan framework Circular Economy yang pertama yaitu BS 8001:2017 yang digunakan oleh berbagai organisasi. Selanjutnya pada 2018, World Economic Forum, World Resources Institute dan  lebih dari 40 partner meluncurkan Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE). 3 Fokus utamanya yaitu mengembangkan model keuangan campuran untuk proyek-proyek circular economy, terutama di negara-negara berkembang; menciptakan kerangka kerja serta kebijakan untuk mengatasi hambatan spesifik untuk memajukan circular economy; dan mempromosikan kemitraan publik dan swasta untuk tujuan ini.

Indonesia sendiri telah menerapkan prinsip circular economy, ditandai dengan telah diselenggarakannya Indonesia Circular Economy Forum yang ketiga kalinya pada November 2019 di Jakarta.  Keberhasilan penerapan konsep circular economy dapat membantu pembuatan produk dan layanan menggunakan inovasi yang membantu memaksimalkan efisiensi penggunaan sumber daya.  Hal ini secara efektif diharapkan akan meningkatkan daya saing, yang dapat membawa peluang pertumbuhan di tingkat global, senilai USD 4,5 triliun pada tahun 2030 (sumber: CEO Guide to the Circular Economy, WBCSD).

Selain itu, circular economy juga dapat membantu mengurangi emisi karbon, yang akan meningkatkan kondisi kehidupan di seluruh dunia dan mewujudkan Kesepakatan Paris serta Tujuan Pembangunan Berkelanjutan PBB. Dalam circular economy, tidak ada lagi sampah. Perbedaan utama linear economy dengan circular economy dapat dilihat pada diagram di atas.

Toronto, bermitra dengan Enbridge Gas Inc, merupakan salah satu kota yang berhasil menerapkan konsep circular economy dan mendukung program kota Toronto yaitu Long Term Waste Management Strategy, dengan mengubah sampah organik bekas makanan menjadi renewable natural gas (RNG) dan menggunakannya untuk kendaraan truk. Dilansir CBC News, dengan inovasinya dalam proyek RNG, kota ini dikenal secara internasional dan mendapatkan “Energy Vision Leadership Award”.

Inovasi apa yang akan dilakukan Indonesia?


Sumber :
https://www.pertamina.com/id/news-room/market-insight/circular-economy

Sampah Menjadi Pakan Ikan dan Pupuk

Sampah Disulap Menjadi Pakan Ikan dan Pupuk

15 November 2019

Siedoo, Inovasi-inovasi dari akademisi terus berkembang. Tim Pengabdian Masyarakat (Pengmas) Universitas Indonesia (UI) menerapkan konsep Circular Economy pada sampah. Rancangannya adalah Sistem Aquaponik.

Sistem yang diusung tim yang beranggotakan Mufti Petala Patria, Wildan Maulana (FMIPA) dan Hapsari Setyowardhani (FEB) merupakan sistem pengintegrasikan penguraian limbah organik kantin dengan bantuan larva (maggot) Black Soldier Fly (BSF) atau Hermetia illucens.

Ketua Tim Pengmas, Mufti menuturkan, untuk kelancarandan keberlangsungan asupan sampah sebagai pakan dari maggot, pihaknya telah melaksanakan kegiatan penyuluhan dan pelatihan pemilahan sampah kepada para petugas kebersihan atau cleaning service yang bertugas membersihkan dan mengumpulkan sampah di kantin FMIPA-UI, belakangan ini.

“Diharapkan program ini dapat berkontribusi yang signifikan untuk mengurangi volume sampah yang dibuang ke tempat pembuangan akhir. Sampah organik yang telah diolah akan bisa dimanfaatkan untuk menghasilkan produk luaran yang bernilai tinggi dan menyuburkan tanaman di sekitar,” ujar Mufti dilansir dari ui.ac.id.

Sampah organik dari kantin diurai menggunakan maggot yang mampu memakan sampah sampai lima kali berat tubuhnya per hari. Maggot tersebut setelah 14 hari akan berubah menjadi pre-pupa yang dapat digunakan sebagai pakan ikan. Air media pemeliharaan ikan ini dipompa untuk mengairi sayuran pada sistem aquaponik.

Kantin FMIPA UI dipilih untuk dikelola limbahnya. Kantin FMIPA UI pada hari kerja dapat menghasilkan sampah organik sebanyak 3-4 ember bekas cat 20 liter.

Sampah tersebut kemudian dimasukan dalam tempat pemeliharaan maggot dengan sistem ember susun dan biopond. Maggot bila telah menjadi pre-pupa atau pupa dapat langsung dijadikan makanan ikan nila, patin atau lele.

Air pemeliharaan ikan tersebut yang banyak mengandung feses dialirkan ke media tanam aquaponik dengan sistem pasang surut yang berisi tanaman kangkung. Sisa sampah beserta kotoran maggot yang dikenal dengan kasgot dapat pula digunakan sebagai pupuk bernutrisi tinggi.

Baca Juga :  Sebelum 1 Desember, Tiga Kementerian Terkait Pendidikan, Dipastikan Sudah Umumkan Peserta SKB
Sehingga dapat disimpulkan dengan sistem ini, sampah kantin dapat menghasilkan ikan, sayuran dan pupuk. Sampah dan limbah dari aktivitas atau kegiatan manusia saat ini menjadi permasalahan yang dihadapi oleh seluruh wilayah di dunia, termasuk Indonesia.

Tempat-tempat penampungan sampah mulai kesulitan menerima sampah organik maupun non-organik.  Saat ini telah dikembang konsep Circular Economy dalam pengelolaan sampah atau limbah. Konsep tersebut menerapkan 5R yaitu Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, dan Recovery/Repair.

Penerapan Prinsip 5R dapat dilakukan melalui pengurangan pemakaian material mentah dari alam (reduce) melalui optimasi penggunaan material yang dapat digunakan kembali (reuse) dan penggunaan material hasil dari proses daur ulang (recycle) maupun dari proses perolehan kembali (recovery) atau dengan melakukan perbaikan (repair).


Sumber :
https://siedoo.com/berita-26486-sampah-disulap-menjadi-pakan-ikan-dan-pupuk/

Mountrash

Daur Ulang Sampah, Meraup Penghasilan di Masa Pandemi Covid-19

Fatkhul Maskur - Bisnis.com
11 Mei 2020

Mountrash, aplikasi usaha rintisan (startapp) pengelolaan sampah memberikan solusi kepada semua orang untuk tetap mendapatkan penghasilan di tengah lesunya aktivitas perekonomian akibat pandemi Covid-19.

Mountrash, aplikasi usaha rintisan (startapp) pengelolaan sampah memberikan solusi kepada semua orang untuk tetap mendapatkan penghasilan di tengah lesunya aktivitas perekonomian akibat pandemi Covid-19.

Mountrash merupakan besutan PT Mountrash Avatar Indonesia. Aplikasi Mountrash yang dapat diunduh pengguna sejak Oktober 2019 itu terus dibenahi dan diperbarui untuk memudahkan pengguna atau user.

Chief Executive Officer Mountrash Gideon Widjaja Ketaren mengatakan wabah Corona of Disease 2019 (Covid-19) telah menurunkan aktivitas perekonomian, bahkan tidak sedikit karyawan yang dirumahkan atau mengalami pemutusan hubungan kerja (PHK).

"Masyarakat dapat mengunduh aplikasi Mountrash terlebih dulu di Playstore. Kemudian mengumpulkan sampah dan rongsokan di rumahnya, seperti botol plastik, dan kardus. Lalu melalui aplikasi itu, sampah dijual dan dapat dikonversikan menjadi nilai uang sejumlah tertentu sesuai dengan jenis dan banyaknya sampah," katanya, Senin (11/5/2020).

Para pekerja korban PHK dan mereka yang ingin mendaftar Kartu Prakerja pun bisa menukarkan sampah dengan kuota internet melalui aplikasi Mountrash sehingga bisa memperlancar aktivitas pendaftaran Kartu Prakerja.

"Jadi kami secara tidak langsung mendukung solusi mengatasi krisis ekonomi akibat pandemi Covid-19. Mountrash menjadi bagian dari solusi untuk mengatasi berbagai persoalan, termasuk bersinergi dengan Kartu Prakerja dan manajemen pengeloaan sampah secara digital,” ujar lulusan Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB) ini.

Menurutnya, aktivitas bekerja dari rumah (work from home/WFH) di DKI Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, dan Bekasi (Jabodetabek) telah meningkatkan volume sampah rumah tangga. Peningkatan sampah rumah tangga itu, kata dia, dapat menjadi peluang menambah penghasilan melalui aplikasi Mountrash.

Gideon menjelaskan semua jenis sampah, seperti plastik, kardus, kertas, besi, dan kaca yang dapat didaur ulang dapat dikonversikan menjadi uang melalui Mountrash.

Pengguna internet hanya perlu membuka Playstore, kemudian memasukkan nomor telepon seluler, memilih fitur jual (dengan memasukkan item barang yang dijual, misal sampah plastik dan kardus). Selanjutnya, pilih sent data tersebut sampai muncul barcode dan screenshot barcode untuk dikirim melalui nomor WhatsApp Mountras 082210108789. Selanjutnya, Mountras akan melakukan penjemputan sampah tersebut.

"Setelah dijemput dan barcode di-scan petugas kami, maka saldo Anda bertambah dan bisa lanjut isi kuota untuk mendaftar Kartu Prakerja, Zooming buat meeting, belajar, WFH, atau aktivitas lainnya," ujarnya.

Selain dapat menambah penghasilan semua orang di tengah kondisi perlambatan ekonomi saat ini, setiap rumah tangga juga dapat berpartisipasi mengurangi sampah plastik. "Sudah menambah penghasilan, mereka juga bisa berpartisipasi dalam mengurangi sampah plastik," ujarnya.

Berdasarkan data Asosiasi Industri Olefin, Aromatik & Plastik Indonesia (Inaplas), volume sampah plastik di Indonesia pada 2017 sebanyak 5,76 juta ton. Sampah plastik itu terdiri atas daur ulang 1,66 juta ton, impor 1,79 juta ton, dan produksi dalam negeri 2,31 juta ton. Adapun konsumsi plastik terus meningkat dengan proyeksi pada 2030 menjadi 11,07 juta ton dari 2017 sebanyak 5,76 juta ton.

Waki Ketua Umum Asosiasi Daur Ulang Sampah Plastik Indonesia (ADUPI) Justin Wiganda menjelaskan selama pembatasan sosial berskala besar (PSBB) di beberapa wilayah, terjadi perubahan jumlah dan lokasi sampah plastik.

"Bekerja dari rumah, selain itu perkantoran, ritel, mal, restoran, toko-toko banyak tidak beroperasi sehingga terjadi pergeseran sampah. Selain itu, bahan baku daur ulang berubah secara volume, kualitas, dan lokasi," katanya.

Dia berharap agar kondisi berangsur normal setelah Lebaran sehingga industri daur ulang bisa beraktivitas kembali secara normal.

Sepudin Zuhri, pemilik Alala Recycling--pengolahan sampah plastik jenis polyethylene terephtalate (PET) di Kabupaten Bogor, mengungkapkan terjadinya pergeseran lokasi sampah selama pandemi Covid-19 karena perubahan aktivitas, yaitu tetap tinggal di rumah atau bekerja dari rumah.

"Saat kondisi normal, sampah plastik banyak berasal dari perkantoran, mal, restoran, hotel, dan lainnya. Namun, sekarang banyak perkantoran yang tutup karena bekerja dari rumah sehingga sampah plastik justru banyak berasal dari rumah tangga," ujarnya.

Menurutnya, kondisi saat ini bisa menjadi momentum untuk edukasi memilah sampah dari rumah tangga sehingga memudahkan proses daur ulang. "Jika sampah sudah dipilah dari rumah tangga, biaya daur ulang lebih efisien karena sampah plastik tidak tercampur dengan jenis sampah lain sehingga lebih bersih."

Selain memilah, setiap rumah tangga dapat menjual sampah plastik melalui aplikasi digital seperti Mountrash sehingga menambah pemasukan keluarga di tengah kondisi perlambatan ekonomi saat ini.

Sepudin mengakui pandemi Covid-19 telah memukul industri daur ulang karena permintaan baik bahan baku maupun produk daur ulang terjadi penurunan. Namun, dia meyakini bahwa kondisi ini akan segera berakhir dan normal kembali.


Sumber :
https://ekonomi.bisnis.com/read/20200511/257/1238656/daur-ulang-sampah-meraup-penghasilan-di-masa-pandemi-covid-19

Unique Circular Economy Projects

3 Companies with Unique Circular Economy Projects

31 MARCH 2019
BY MEILANI

The circular economy is all about generating zero waste while keeping our valuable limited resources within the economy for as long as possible. While that sounds like a lot of technical work that involves complicated blueprints and diagrams, there are actually many unique and creative ways that a company can contribute to the circular economy. Here are three of these unique circular economy projects.

Suroboyo Bus Line: Turning plastic into currency
‘That’ll be five plastic bottles, please.’

Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, has taken an original approach to tackling their plastic pollution problem. Their solution: you can now pay your bus fare in plastic bottles.

A two-hour bus ride will cost you approximately five plastic bottles, or ten plastic cups. Starting in April, this initiative is an attempt to reach the city’s goal of being plastic waste free by 2020. As Indonesia is estimated to be the second largest contributor to ocean plastic, and as Surabaya generates 155,400 tonnes of plastic waste per day, this is no doubt an ambitious target.

Nonetheless, these steps are sure to help. By giving people an incentive to collect their plastic waste, the city can simultaneously teach their citizens responsible waste management and ensure that their plastics are routed out of the oceans and back into the economy.

The bottles that are collected as payment for the bus fares are auctioned off to recycling companies, where they will be processed and turned into new plastic products. Furthermore, after helping towards the bus line’s operating costs, the surplus money earned at the auction is put towards funding of green spaces around the city. A creative three-in-one, this program keeps the city green and clean, keeps the plastics out of the ocean and within the economy.

Children wait in line to trade their plastic bottles for a bus ticket in Surabaya, Indonesia. Source: Reuters


DGTL Festival: Turning glasses into art
DGTL Festival is an artsy techno music festival in Amsterdam whose mission is to become the world’s first circular festival. They are working towards this goal in various ways, like their Circular Foodcourt, where they base their menu not around what festival goers want to eat but around what leftover ingredients are available from local stores.

This year, they are taking this circularity to their art scene. Together with Ace & Tate, an eyewear company, the two circular-driven organizations are turning 15,000 surplus optics lenses into a magnificent art installation that will be on display at the festival from the 19th to the 21st of April.

‘Instead of a take-make-waste process, we try to make it circular and make new products out of waste streams,’ says Marlot Kiveron, Sustainability Manager of Ace & Tate. Rather than disposing of these 15,000 unwanted lenses, why not use them to give the festival a little bling?


Timberland: Turning tires into shoes
‘When the tread wears out the tire lives on, recycled into Timberland shoes.’

Timberland, creator of the world-famous ‘Timbs’ boots, has recently expanded into the tire market. The purpose: making their boots circular.

Partnering with Omni United, a tire manufacturer, they are set to produce their new line of Timberland Tires, which are specifically created with the intention that they will one day be recycled into a brand new pair of Timberland shoes.

Once the tread on the Timberland Tires has worn out, the customer can replace them with new ones at authorized dealers. The retired tires are then recycled into crumb rubber, which is turned into outsoles for a pair of Timberland boots.

Timberland is penetrating the circular economy at an earlier stage than most, by producing tires that are specifically destined to re-enter the economy at their end-of-life. Instead of finding themselves in a landfill, which is where 27 million scrap tires end up, Timberland Tires are given a new life in the form of a pair of trendy Timberland boots.


Sumber :
https://community.materialtrader.com/3-companies-with-unique-circular-economy-projects/

Doughnut Economic Model

Meet the doughnut: the new economic model that could help end inequality

Image: Kate Raworth and Christian Guthier/The Lancet Planetary Health

28 Apr 2017

Kate Raworth
Senior Visiting Research Associate, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here’s the state of humanity in a single image. It’s the “Doughnut” of social and planetary boundaries and it could just turn out to be the compass we need for creating a safe and just 21st century.

The hole at the Doughnut’s centre reveals the proportion of people worldwide falling short on life’s essentials, such as food, water, healthcare and political freedom of expression – and a big part of humanity’s challenge is to get everyone out of that hole. At the same time, however, we cannot afford to be overshooting the Doughnut’s outer crust if we are to safeguard Earth’s life-giving systems, such as a stable climate, healthy oceans and a protective ozone layer, on which all our wellbeing fundamentally depends.


Safe and just space

If getting into the Doughnut’s safe and just space between these social and planetary boundaries is humanity’s 21st century goal, then – it comes as no surprise – we have a big job ahead. Many millions of people still lack life’s essentials, living daily with hunger, illiteracy, insecurity and voicelessness. At the same time, humanity’s collective pressure on the planet has already overshot at least four planetary boundaries: for climate change, land conversion, fertilizer use, and biodiversity loss.

In other words, today’s global economy is deeply divisive – riven with extreme inequalities – and it is degenerative too, running down the living world on which everything depends.

What economic mindset can give us even half a chance of turning this situation around? This is the question at the heart of my book, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, and here I’ll focus on just one of those seven ways: a revolution in economic thinking about inequality.


Progress for everyone

Inequality seems to have become the topic of our times, even though barely a decade ago it was politely kept off the agenda. Thanks to the past 10 years of ground-breaking analysis – including Wilkinson and Pickett’s The Spirit Level, Oxfam’s annual billionaire calculations and Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century – combined with the extraordinary rise of the 1%, the promise to tackle inequality now appears high on every policymaker’s list. We are daily offered “inclusive growth” and “an economy that works for everyone”. So what kind of economic mindset can help bring it about?

Certainly not 20th-century thinking on inequality, which was ruled by a spurious economic law of motion. And that law’s accidental creator, Simon Kuznets, would be the first to debunk the political narrative that has been built on the back of it, used to justify trickle-down economics and austerity politics ever since.

In 1955, Kuznets gathered together patchy historical data on income distribution in the US, UK and Germany, and he thought he saw a pattern: that as economies grew, income inequality rose at first and then fell. Plotted on the page, it looked like an upside-down U.

             
Kuznets was the first to acknowledge that this finding went against his intuition: given the dynamics of capital accumulation, he expected the rich to get richer, not the poor to catch up. So he proffered a tentative explanation based on the process of rural-to-urban migration – a hypothesis for which he later admitted he had “no evidence whatsoever”. He even openly acknowledged that his conclusion was based on “5 per cent empirical information and 95 per cent speculation, some of it possibly tainted by wishful thinking’, later adding that it should not be used for making “unwarranted dogmatic generalisations.”

So much for Kuznets’ caveats. The underlying message – that rising inequality is an inevitable stage on the journey towards economic success for all – was too good a story to doubt and the Kuznets Curve was taught to every student for at least the next 50 years. That matters because it wordlessly whispers a powerful message: if you want progress, inequality is inevitable. It’s got to get worse before it can get better and growth will (eventually) make it better.

So what new paradigm can replace this outdated myth and its accompanying intellectual graffiti? An old picture is best dislodged by a new one, so let’s start with a 21st-century image fit for tackling inequality: a network of flows.

             
A network of flows: structuring an economy as a distributed network can more equitably distribute income and wealth amongst all those who help to generate it.


Distributive by design
To transform today’s divisive economies, we need to create economies that are distributive by design – ones that share value far more equitably amongst all those who help to generate it. And thanks to the emergence of network technologies – particularly in digital communications and renewable energy generation – we have a far greater chance of making this happen than any generation before us.

As we do so, we should also deepen the ambition of the redistribution agenda. In the 20th century, policies promoting redistribution were largely focused on redistributing income – by raising taxes, increasing transfers, and implementing minimum wages – along with investing in key public services such as health and education. All are essential, but they still don’t get to the root of economic inequalities because they focus on income, not the sources of wealth that generate it.

Instead of focusing foremost on income, 21st-century economists will seek to redistribute the sources of wealth too – especially the wealth that lies in controlling land and resources, in controlling money creation, and in owning enterprise, technology and knowledge. And instead of turning solely to the market and state for solutions, they will harness the power of the commons to make it happen. Here are some questions that 21st century economists have already taken on to help create an economy that is distributive by design:

Land and resources: how can the value of Earth’s natural commonwealth be more equitably distributed: through land reform, land-value taxes, or by reclaiming land as a commons? And how could understanding our planet’s atmosphere and oceans as global commons far better distribute the global returns to their sustainable use?

Money creation: why endow commercial banks with the right to create money as interest-based debt, and leave them to reap the rents that flow from it? Money could alternatively be created by the state, or indeed by communities as complementary currencies: it’s time to create a monetary ecosystem that can fulfill this distributive potential.

Enterprise: what business design models – such as cooperatives and employee-owed companies – can best ensure that committed workers, not fickle shareholders, reap a far greater share of the value that they help to generate?

Knowledge: how can the potential of the creative commons be unleashed internationally, through free open-source hardware and software, and the rise of creative commons licensing?

Technology: who will own the robots, and why should it be that way? Given that much basic research underlying automation and digitization has been publicly funded, should a share of the rewards not return to the public purse?

By taking on such questions of distributive design, we’ll give ourselves a far greater chance of tackling inequality and of thriving in the Doughnut’s safe and just space this century. And that is nothing less than our generational challenge.


Sumber :
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/the-new-economic-model-that-could-end-inequality-doughnut/

What is a circular economy?

Looking beyond the current take-make-waste extractive industrial model, a circular economy aims to redefine growth, focusing on positive society-wide benefits. It entails gradually decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, and designing waste out of the system. Underpinned by a transition to renewable energy sources, the circular model builds economic, natural, and social capital. It is based on three principles:

Design out waste and pollution
Keep products and materials in use
Regenerate natural systems

Re-thinking Progress: The Circular Economy
There's a world of opportunity to rethink and redesign the way we make stuff. 'Re-Thinking Progress' explores how through a change in perspective we can re-design the way our economy works - designing products that can be 'made to be made again' and powering the system with renewable energy. It questions whether with creativity and innovation we can build a restorative economy.

The concept of a circular economy
In a circular economy, economic activity builds and rebuilds overall system health. The concept recognises the importance of the economy needing to work effectively at all scales – for large and small businesses, for organisations and individuals, globally and locally.

Transitioning to a circular economy does not only amount to adjustments aimed at reducing the negative impacts of the linear economy. Rather, it represents a systemic shift that builds long-term resilience, generates business and economic opportunities, and provides environmental and societal benefits.


Technical and biological cycles

The model distinguishes between technical and biological cycles. Consumption happens only in biological cycles, where food and biologically-based materials (such as cotton or wood) are designed to feed back into the system through processes like composting and anaerobic digestion. These cycles regenerate living systems, such as soil, which provide renewable resources for the economy. Technical cycles recover and restore products, components, and materials through strategies like reuse, repair, remanufacture or (in the last resort) recycling.


Origins of the circular economy concept

The notion of circularity has deep historical and philosophical origins. The idea of feedback, of cycles in real-world systems, is ancient and has echoes in various schools of philosophy. It enjoyed a revival in industrialised countries after World War II when the advent of computer-based studies of non-linear systems unambiguously revealed the complex, interrelated, and therefore unpredictable nature of the world we live in – more akin to a metabolism than a machine. With current advances, digital technology has the power to support the transition to a circular economy by radically increasing virtualisation, de-materialisation, transparency, and feedback-driven intelligence.


Circular economy schools of thought

The circular economy model synthesises several major schools of thought. They include the functional service economy (performance economy) of Walter Stahel; the Cradle to Cradle design philosophy of William McDonough and Michael Braungart; biomimicry as articulated by Janine Benyus; the industrial ecology of Reid Lifset and Thomas Graedel; natural capitalism by Amory and Hunter Lovins and Paul Hawken; and the blue economy systems approach described by Gunter Pauli.


Sumber :
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy/concept