Circular economy could boost UK economy by £75bn, says WRAP

A circular economy will help the UK build back better, bolstering the economy by £75 billion and creating half a million jobs, according to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Releasing its ‘Six steps to build a better economy’ today (29 June), the WRAP outlines that a circular transition has the potential to rebuild a sustainable and resilient economy going forward after the Covid-19 pandemic, especially with the UK’s exit from the EU on the horizon.

The economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis looks likely to push the UK economy into its deepest recession in 300 years, with the UK’s economic output plunging by 11.5 per cent in 2020, leading to widespread company closures and job losses, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Additionally, harnessing the potential of a circular transition could deliver 21 million tonnes in material savings and over 38 million tonnes of waste diverted from landfill. The EU-funded REBus project ‘Extrapolating resource efficient business models across Europe’, in which WRAP was the lead project partner, has provided the basis of these findings. WRAP calls on policy makers to take “immediate steps” to lock in circularity to a post-Covid recovery and outlines six steps needed to rebuild the economy and safeguard natural resources:

1. Accelerate the move towards a circular economy, with a focus on those operations such as remanufacturing and repair which generate new net jobs and can help tackle structural unemployment.
2. Governments, regions, cities and regions throughout the UK adopting a ‘Target, Measure, Act’ approach to increasing the circularity of their activities/operations.
3. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) provide stakeholders with greater certainty by publishing progress reports on the implementation of the Resources and Waste, Industrial and Clean Growth strategies by the end of 2020.
4. Make UK Government support to businesses with a large material footprint contingent upon the businesses adopting a ‘Target, Measure, Act’ approach to increasing the circularity of their activities/operations.
5. Introduce targeted policy, financial and business support and citizen engagement to drive a more circular economy.
6. UK Government and the UK banking sector consider reviewing their approaches to providing financial support to businesses to ensure they are not disadvantaging circular businesses.

Source: Resource