A circular economy overcomes the “take, make, waste” of traditional linear economies by attaching costs to the creation of waste and pollution and to the over-exploitation of resources¹⁰. Circular policies also create financial incentives to make the waste from one process the feedstock for another. The goal is to create giant closed loops that recycle and reuse Earth’s resources for as long as possible.¹⁰

Future Horizons:

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5-yearhorizon

Circularity efforts gain momentum on local scales

City programmes to increase circularity gain powerful grass-roots followings. The “right-to-repair” movement forces legislation that makes most products repairable, creating a new cottage industry focused on DIY repair. Artificial intelligence helps to identify and react to eventualities that might cause crises or unsustainable practices in the global supply chain.

10-yearhorizon

The first entirely closed-loop economic processes appear

International agreement on materials pricing creates the financial incentives that make complete circular economies more viable. The first of these begin to bear fruit.

25-yearhorizon

Circular economies become more widespread

Truly circular economies appear in some industries on national and regional scales. However, pricing issues still incentivise many linear practices and significant global regulation is needed to bootstrap more circularity.

There are many challenges here. Renewable energy is an important part of the solution because it eliminates generation of CO₂ waste from fossil fuels. Properly pricing natural resources will require substantial interventions as well as regulation to direct the use of resources on a global scale.¹¹ However, the war in Ukraine has significantly increased investment in renewable energy, providing an unexpected boost for efforts to create the foundations for circular processes.

At the same time, trials of circular processes are accelerating. Renault is currently fitting out Europe’s first dedicated circular-economy factory for vehicles,¹² Philips has begun a project to remanufacture used medical machinery so it can be resold as new,¹³ with the relevant performance and product guarantees, and Dow has begun building chemical plants for turning used plastic into ethylene, which can be used to make virgin plastic again.¹⁴

Bootstrapping circular economies - Anticipation Scores

The Anticipation Potential of a research field is determined by the capacity for impactful action in the present, considering possible future transformative breakthroughs in a field over a 25-year outlook. A field with a high Anticipation Potential, therefore, combines the potential range of future transformative possibilities engendered by a research area with a wide field of opportunities for action in the present. We asked researchers in the field to anticipate:

The uncertainty related to future science breakthroughs in the field
The transformative effect anticipated breakthroughs may have on research and society
The scope for action in the present in relation to anticipated breakthroughs.

This chart represents a summary of their responses to each of these elements, which when combined, provide the Anticipation Potential for the topic. See methodology for more information.