Last month saw the return of London Climate Action week, a week-long campaign to promote innovation and facilitate collaboration between all sectors to accelerate action on climate change. The flagship event, Reset Connect, was hosted at the Excel Centre and provided two days of discussion groups, panel sessions and networking to bring together academics, businesses, sustainability professionals and thought leaders to share best practice.
The keynote speaker of the event was Kate Raworth, an economist whose work focuses on how we can transform our global systems to create a more equitable society for all – in which humans can thrive without depleting the Earth’s natural resources. This shift to what she terms ‘donut economics’ is simple in theory but challenging in practice! The Earth has sufficient resources to sustain a healthy population, but our exploitative systems mean that we are stuck in a cycle of overconsumption and resource exhaustion that has led to climate breakdown and significant inequality.
At the center of Raworth’s theory for a thriving planet is the concept of a circular economy. Put simply, this is a system in which humans use the resources that have already been extracted from the earth, or those that are naturally renewable, to meet their existing and future needs. Unfortunately, a convenience culture and single-use mentality has come to dominate the design of a lot of products and services we see today. But these things are a huge threat to the health of our planet. From ready meals and pre-packaged fruit & veg, to fast fashion and electronics with very short lifespans, many of the products we see are produced using virgin materials and require significant energy to manufacture, and fuel to transport – not to mention the fact that they are designed to be thrown away after minimal use.
So whilst there is undoubtedly a strong need for system change, and for regulation that will incentivise companies to shift their business models away from mass produced, low quality and low-priced goods, there is always a place for individual consumers to make a difference. The two biggest ways we can help to drive this shift to a sustainable circular economy are:
- Changing our attitude to the things we already own: we’ve all heard of ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ but how much do we really live these principles every day? We’ve put together a list of a few more “Rs” to help really challenge the way we value materials and possessions – see the article here on our Tips & Tricks page!
- Thinking carefully about the choices we make when we do need to buy new things: making the right choice and navigating the often confusing labelling of ‘green’ or ‘natural’ products can be a huge challenge. We’ve put together a simple list of questions you can ask before you buy something new here on our Tips & Tricks page!
At True Food, we are keen to help equip our community with useful and practical tools so that they can support a shift to a more circular way of thinking. The very essence of our shop supports this goal by selling organic food that has a much lower impact on the environment and committing to zero waste products to reduce the need for new packaging and preventing unnecessary landfill. For more information, and ideas, on how you can contribute to the creation of a circular economy please click here.