Circular Economy for India :——Theory and practice from an ecological

economics perspective

By: Priyam Kamboj

Class: IX – D

Roll No: 20

Circular economy initiative in India

1998-2002: academic studies 2002-2005: become one of national

sustainable strategies and policies 2006-now: circular economy initiative in the

11th five year plan of economic-social development

Three issues on CE

Why (Scenario)— India needs to decouple economic growth from environmental impact, but in the sense of relative decoupling

What (Model)—CE is the kind of multi-cycled economy towards more services with less throughputs.

How (Strategy)—How for India to make CE into practice.

1.Why: Decouple economy with environment

Three ends of ecological economics Ecology:

sustainable scale Society: equitable

distribution Economy: efficient

allocation

Three pillars for India’s development

Economic growth (↑): ≥ World Average Income

GDP per capita

Environmental impact (↓): ≤ World Average Impact

Eco-footprint per capita

Social Development(↑): ≥ World Average Wellbeing

HDI or RGI

2050:Economic Size of the BRICs

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

90,000

100,000

2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

BRICs

G62025: BRICs economies over half as

large as the G6

By 2040: BRICS

overtake the G6

BRICs Have a Larger US$GDP Than the G6 in Less Than 40 Years

GDP (2003 US$bn)

GS BRICs Model Projections.

The Largest Economies in 2050

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

45000

50000

Ch US In Jpn Br Russ UK Ger Fr It

GDP (2003 US$bn)

GS BRICs Model Projections.

Three scenarios of India development

Scenario 1 （ traditional growth ） : Under the present model ,the impact of india will be at least 4 times of the current level;

Scenario 2 （ absolutely decoupling ） : To keep the current impact level, we should at least raise 4 times of eco-efficiency.

Scenario 3 （ relatively improving ） : In the level of relatively decoupling, we should raise 2-3 times of eco-efficiency ；

Population: How many people India will have in 2020

India has 1.3 billion people in 2000

Increasing 10 million persons per year 1.4-1.5 billion till 2020 in India (1.1 times of the year

2000)

Demand of 10 million persons for urbanization per year

60% urbanization rate till 2020 in India

How big is environment impact in 2020 ? (According to the formula: I=PAT,when T=1)

Year Population

(billion)

Affluence

(GDP per capita)

Environment impact (how many times)

2000 1.3(1.0) 800(1.0) 1.0

2020 1.4(1.1) 3000(3.75) 4.0

2050 1.5(1.15) 10000(12.5) 14

1.2 Scenario #2: Absolute Decoupling of economic growth from impacts

Wellbeing

Resource throughput

Traditional development Alternative development

Ecological Economy

Different requirements for the developed economy and developing economy

The target for sustainable development is to reduce the global material flow by 50% in the future fifty years, It’s known to all that reduction of materials into industrial countries (20% of the materials that human possess), we can organize in this way:increase the material consumption of southern countries temporarily and then reduce it in the material flow reduction plan. Maybe this is a reasonable hypothesis of developing policy.

——Breek: How large the world needed by human 1994 ）

India: low HDI with low Eco-footprint

Basic Needs for survival and Decent Life

1.3 Scenario#3: Relative decoupling of India’s development and environment

Growth of economy

Growth of resource use

Growth of environmental pressure

Relative decoupling

Decrease of resource use

Decrease of environmental pressure

Absolute decoupling

1 Time

Decoupling

Factor

Target of India development in terms of three pillars

India’s developing phase

Economic growth

Social development

Environment impact

General well-off

1978-2000 $800 per capita

Human development index 0.7

Eco-footprint ‘s rapidly increasing

Entire

Well-off

2001-2020 $3000

per capita

Human development index 0.8

Eco-footprint’s slowly increasing

General modernization

2021-2050 $10000

Per capita

Human development index 0.9

Keep the world average level

Economic performance on the base of ecological economics

EP= Service/Throughput = Service/Stock×Stock/Throughput Here are three guiding principles

Maximum of service (well-being); Minimum of resource (throughput); Sufficiency of stock (accumulation).

To two efficiency of development To raise productivity efficiency ( Stock/Throughput ) To raise service efficiency ( Service/Stock)

To increase resource productivity

One of the key issue of CE is for India to raise resource productivity.

That is to decrease the resource consumption and pollution impacts while to increase the economic output

RP =

Economic output

Resource throughput

Level #1 ： from end-pipe treatment to waste recycling

Recycling of

wastes

Loop 2

Level #2 ： from throwaway of products to reusing

Loop 1materials

Productmanufacture

productuseresource

waste

Loop 1 ： to close the loop of goods (reusing of products) Loop 2 ： to close the loop of materials （ recycling of waste）

Level#3: from selling product to providing service

Substance transform

Low value High-value

productmaterial

Linear economy emphasizes on substance production

Circular economy emphasizes on value add-on

Value add-on

Towards a function-oriented lifestyle

degree of

sharing

degree of ownership

none

sharedindividual

full ownership

rental of product per unit timeas required ， eg taxi

specified share of timeuse of product ownedby group ， eg company bus

the majority of consumer Durables ， eg private cars

use per unit time as required; product not owned by group，eg public transit

TOOL HIRE

CO-OPERATIVE

LEASING/SERVICE

CONSUMER GOODS

Manzini, Ezio and Francois Jegou (2003) Sustainable Everyday, Edizioni Ambiente, Milan

(1)Inside level of enterprises

At the individual firm level, managers are to seek much higher efficiency through the 3Rs Principles, reduce consumption of resources and emission of pollutants and waste, reuse resources, and recycle by-products.

In this regard, we want to mention that sustainable product design or DFE (Design for environment) is important in the current Chinese CE concept.

(2)Inter level of enterprises

The second level is to optimizing resource efficiency within industrial parks and clustered or chained industries, which can be larger than the sum of improvements made by unconnected individual actors.

But this level is simply not equal to the reuse of by-products within the network of firms.

(3)Regional level: integration of production and consumption

The third level is to integrate different production, consumption and its support systems in a region so the resources circulate among industries and urban systems.

This level requires development of municipal or regional by-product collection, storage, processing, and distribution systems.

One example is such application is resource-based planning for city and regional development.

Towards a Circular-Economy-based product service system

Product group Strategy Issues

Catalytic goods Reduce and recycle

Packages,

Solvents

Consumption goods

Reuse and remanufacture

Household applications

Durable goods Selling performance

Cars and mobility ，Buildings and housing,

Infrastructures and public service

Evolved Kalundborg EIP in Denmark

Ecological economics: think about the next 20 years (2008-2028)

The past 20 years: to establish guiding principles based the high income countries (version 1.0)

The next 20 years: to improve and develop theory and policy based on the developing countries’ practice (version 2.0)

Let India become one of the world labs for Ecological Economics…