The circular economy is a regenerative system in which resource and waste production, emissions and energy wastage can be minimized. This conceptual framework helps decision-makers to understand two of today’s major environmental challenges, namely the waste crisis and the depletion of mineral and fossil resources. The risk of focusing on these two challenges alone is to miss out on other, less directly visible issues, such as global warming, biodiversity loss or the toxicological effects of our activities on people and ecosystems. These are all questions that call for more conceptualization and exploration on our part, if we are to overcome the environmental crisis we face.
