How being critical can accelerate our transition to circular economy
With the intention to switch from linear economy to circular, we are redesigning products and transforming production processes to close the loops. But perhaps, not everything has to be transformed and adapted to fit in circular economy and our future. Perhaps, we should ask ourselves if this product/service/process we are adapting is useful to begin with?
It is an uncomfortable question. It is challenging. It means, as a company, you must re-invent yourself, you must find new ways to exist and new ways to employ people. It is an uncomfortable question, but a necessary one if we do not want to waste our time and effort.
Take sleeping pills, for example. Sleeping pills, in fact, do more harm than good (1) and have close to no effect (2). If I am a sleeping pill manufacturer, I can invest resources into making production process more sustainable, into cutting emissions, into preventing waste, etc. But is my product needed? Is my product working? No. I might be driven by the sincere desire to help people, but if I am critical and honest with myself, I can realise that the ‘how’ is not the right one. So, I can cease production of something that is not working (and consequently is just a waste of resources), admit that there is no magic pill for anything in this world and, instead, divert my activities into actually helping people to sleep better — educate them on the pre-requisites of a healthy sleep, help them relax naturally, get involved in sleep research. Will it generate millions in profit? Probably not, not for me. It will, however, save millions in health care and in increased productivity. There will be fewer sick people to heal, lower mortality(3) and increased economic output from well rested individuals. It will save natural resources. Sometimes, for ‘us’ to win, ‘I’ have to lose.
We can look at our energy use in a similar way. We are now busy making sure we can meet our energy needs with renewable sources. That is great. But perhaps along with waiting till we can cover that demand, we can be critical about our true needs?
Do we, as individuals, need to consume TV every single day for several hours straight? Most certainly not. It does not add to our wellbeing either. Do we need to keep shops, roads and buildings illuminated throughout the whole night? Probably not*. Do we need all this energy to keep on producing sleeping pills (or anything else, really) that do not work and leave us with more problems? No, we do not.
So instead of 90 TWh a year we think we need to power our prosperous society, perhaps we need only 60 TWh which already can be covered with the renewable energy**. When you have a budget, you make your expenses fit that budget, you do not wait for the budget to increase.
Before putting our precious time and effort into shifting anything to circular economy, in other words, before getting busy with the ‘how’s’ and the ‘what’s’, let us pause more often to question its existence all together, let us question its ‘why’s’.
Notes and sources:
- Sleeping pill is not inducing natural sleep — it sedates you instead. The resulting sedation cannot be compared to a good quality sleep in its benefits and comes with a bunch of side effects including next day grogginess and a withdrawal syndrome that brings even more severe insomnia. All of this and more you can learn from Matthew Walker and his book ‘Why we sleep’.
- According to the following study, effects of sleeping pills are subjective, not objective: T.B. Huedo-Medina, I. Kirsch, J. Middlemass, et al., “Effectiveness of non-benzodiazepine hypnotics in treatment of adult insomnia: meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administraton.” BMJ 345 (2012)
- Using sleeping pills results in a higher chance of premature death, Dr.Daniel F.Kripke, http://darksideofsleepingpills.com/
* Bonus, you reduce light pollution, which means better sleep for citizens, which in turn leads to healthier and better performant individuals, which benefits economy. Win-win-win.
** Numbers are made up just to make a point.
