The Circular Economy: Guest Post by Ellen Cowley What is the Circular Economy? The circular economy is a model of production and consumption. It is a method of looking at our economy and the life cycle of products with the environment in mind. It encourages reducing, reusing, recycling, repurposing, repairing and sharing resources. How it all started The idea of the circular economy was first proposed by Allen Kneese in his book “The Economics of Natural Resources” (1988). In 2015, the EU made the first Circular Economy Action Plan. Their aim was to keep the lifecycle of a product infinite, so that instead of ending up in landfill, it would stay in use for as long as possible. They hoped that by introducing incentives for both the economy and the environment, it would get people on board. The Circular Economy and Climate Change The transition to renewable energy is not sufficient on its own to tackle climate change. To tackle 45% of emissions which come from indu...