Introduction

While there are many definitions of the circular economy currently in use, the one most often cited in English is that from the British charity, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, given above. Like most others, this starts from the assumption that the earth’s ‘natural capital’, the resources which we depend on, are ‘stocks’ that need to be conserved, kept in use for as long as possible and reused, rather than being used up as needed and then discarded. This is necessary because the global market at present does not properly account for or price the environmental costs of the extraction of resources, their manufacture into goods, or for the environmental impact these goods have in use or after their eventual disposal.