From an economic point of view, the industrial econ- omy is efficient to overcome situations of a scarcity of goods. From a technological point of view, the resource efficiency of the manufacturing processes of the industrial economy has been per- manently improved during the last 200 years. In addition, cleaner processes have been developed. However, from an ecologic point of view, an increasing world population with increasing consump- tion has produced a "global footprint" which approaches the car- rying capacity of the planet. A circular economy and its high-value spin-offs-a lake economy and a performance or functional service economy-can fulfil customers' needs with considerably less resource consump- tion, less environmental impairment in production and considera- bly less end-of-life product waste, especially in situations of af- fluence, when a considerable stock of physical goods and infra- structures exists. Also, in situations of a scarcity of natural resources, both en- ergy and materials, often characterised by rapidly rising resource prices, the economic actors of a circular economy have a high competitive advantage over the actors of the industrial economy, due to much lower procurement costs for materials and energy. From a social point of view, a circular economy increases the number of skilled jobs in regional enterprises. However, the shift from a linear manufacturing economy to a circular or service economy means a change in economic thinking, from flow (throughput) management to stock (asset) management: in a manufacturing economy with largely unsaturated markets, total wealth increases through accumulation as resource through- put (flow) is transformed into a higher stock of goods of better quality (but in a manufacturing economy with largely saturated markets, wealth represented by the stock of goods will no longer increase); in a circular or service economy, total wealth increases through a smart management of existing physical assets (stock) that are adapted to changes in both technology and customer de- mand. This second approach not only applies to physical capital but equally to social capital, such as health and education and green GDP. To measure the social wealth of a population, it is not the amount of money spent on schools and hospitals that matters, butif this expenditure has led to a better education of the students, and a better health of the people.
展开▼
