Joshua Howgego: What does the circular economy mean to you?
Janez Poto膷nik: I think the nicest definition was given decades ago by one of the founders of this idea, Walter Stahel, who said a linear economy is like a river and a circular economy is like a lake. More specifically, it鈥檚 about keeping resources in production and keeping consumption cycles going for as long as possible, and keeping their value high. I see the circular economy as an instrument, a way of decoupling economic growth from resource use and environmental impacts.
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How important is it in your work?
At the IRP, our focus is on managing natural resources in the most sustainable way. Sometimes people talk about 鈥渞esource efficiency鈥�, but that鈥檚 really just about how to improve the current economic model. The circular economy is more of a systemic driver of wider change and that鈥檚 why it is becoming quite central to our work.
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You鈥檝e given speeches connecting the circular economy with meeting climate goals. How can it help?
If you want to address the climate challenge, you need to use all the policy armoury at your disposal. At the moment, we鈥檙e concentrating on supply-side solutions, how we produce things. Energy is considered the most important sector because it produces so much of our greenhouse gas emissions.
But we must look at the demand side too. Imagine you live in a world where we have abundant, cheap renewable energy, but you also have current models of production and consumption in sectors like clothing, housing and other consumer goods. How can we transform these sectors so that we meet human needs in a more sustainable way?
Let me give you the example of steel. Normally we ask: how can we make the steel-making process more green? But from the demand side, you might instead think that a lot of steel is used to meet the human need for mobility. Can we design the system of mobility in a different way so that we use, say, half as many cars and so a lot less steel? This is a really important way of thinking to help us reduce our use of resources and therefore our emissions too.
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Do politicians get the importance of the circular economy?
I talk to ministers and [EU] commissioners. They pretty much understand the story and the need for change. But the response you get is different depending on how you introduce the ideas. As long as you talk about resource efficiency or cleaning up production, it鈥檚 easier, because it鈥檚 attractive for the business sector. But when you talk about different ways of meeting human needs, perhaps with lower quantity of production, that becomes more problematic. Replacing combustion engines with electric motors is an easier part of the debate than how many cars we really need to deliver mobility.
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Do you think we will make the shift to a circular economy?
If we look at the challenges, then things look quite gloomy. So my response is: please don鈥檛 ask me that! But seriously, I am always an optimist because optimists live longer and better lives.
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Janez Poto膷nik is an economist and politician who served as European commissioner for the environment from 2010 to 2014. Since 2014, he has been co-chair of the UN鈥檚 International Resource Panel, which provides evidence-based advice on how to better manage Earth鈥檚 material resources.
