With New York Climate Week underway, this episode of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Circular Economy Show, dives into the growing momentum of the circular economy in the US.
Host Pippa Shawley is joined by Jon Smieja, Vice President of Circularity at Trellis Group and Danielle Holly, North America Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Together, they’ll discuss the need for systemic change, the opportunities for circular business models, and how this transition can help meet climate goals.
Join us as we unpack the opportunities ahead and explore how the US can lead the transition to a circular economy, creating lasting environmental and economic benefits.
Do you want to learn more about the different sources mentioned in this episode? Head over to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website to learn more about the Foundation’s Industrial Decarbonization Report. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Ellen MacArthur North America newsletter to keep up to date with new developments in the circular economy in North America.
Learn more about the work Trellis does to accelerate the just transition to a clean economy in the US.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.
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Transcript
Pippa Shawley 00:00
Hello and welcome to the Circular Economy Show. With New York Climate Week underway, this week, we're turning our attention to the USA to explore the need for a circular economy there, the work that's currently happening, and the opportunities a circular economy can offer. I'm Pippa and to help me learn more about this, I'm joined by Jon Smieja, Vice President of Circularity at Trellis Group, formerly known as GreenBiz, and my colleague, Danielle Holly, North America Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Danielle, can you kick us off by telling us what the landscape for circular economy in the US looks like at the moment?
Danielle Holly 00:38
Yes, of course. And thank you, Pippa, for the intro. We are at a significant moment in the US for the circular economy. Right now, the circular economy as a concept and as an important transition is really gaining popularity, gaining momentum, and we are at a moment where we really need to start to put it into practice and start to build the muscle of circularity within companies, within policy, within our ecosystems and the US is such an important needs to be an important leader in the circular economy. We have about 25% of GDP world. GDP is here in the US and, of course, significant geopolitical influence, and need to really step into a role of leading on the circular economy. And we're at a moment right now where we really have the opportunity to do that. We have historic levels of funding, federal funding in redesigning our infrastructure. We also have historic levels of climate funding. And one of the indicators of growth, we always look at our circular economy jobs, and those are accelerating quite rapidly. You know, in the context of climate week, where we're sitting right now, the circular economy is a really potent contributor to the to us reaching our climate goals in the US and globally, about 45% of our greenhouse gas emissions comes from the products and the food that we create, and the circular economy really provides a path and a framework and a solution to reducing those emissions. A lot of the climate conversation has really been focused on the energy sector appropriately, but really they need to expand. So I could go on and on, I know we only have a couple of minutes to talk about a very big topic, and very eager to hear John's perspective, but I am really excited about the possibilities that the US presents for circular economy at the moment.
Pippa Shawley 02:53
Yeah, Jon, maybe you can tell us a bit about what you've noticed working at GreenBiz.
Jon Smieja 02:57
Yes, thanks, Danielle, that was a great overview. I think, just to add on to it, I often think of this in terms of Kate Roy worth's concept of donut economics. You know, the only way that we have the global capacity to bring everyone into the economic zone where they can thrive and protect the climate, biodiversity, et cetera, is through the circular economy. Right? So, to me, the need is clear. We need to decouple economic thriving from extraction, and it feels like we're starting to see companies in the US agree that that need is clear and real.
Pippa Shawley 03:32
And Danielle, what have we seen already in the US? So we know that it hasn't scaled in the same way that it has in, say, Europe. But who is on the frontier of this?
Danielle Holly 03:46
We have a significant amount of business corporations leading corporations who have started to make circular economy a priority. There, of course, are the leaders in this space, I would name IKEA as one that has been a an enduring leader in the space. Was really thinking about circular economy before circular economy was a term that was popularized. But I'd say most of the leading companies, fortune, 100 fortune, 500 companies now have often within their sustainability groups, which are also growing a circular economy role. And we're seeing now more than one role. We're seeing those roles gain leadership and decision making power. So that really, to me, represents a growth and a focus of the business community and business, particularly with climate and biodiversity and natural capital, are seeing a real cost that's to their bottom line of not taking action on the circular economy and not having Circular Economy strategies. So I think there is a recognition of the value. But. Also a recognition that we need to move away from a linear system. And then within the olisi landscape, we have, through some of the historic funding under the Biden administration bill and Ira and chips, we have an industrial decarbonization report that we've published in the last year that can give you kind of the detail on all those acronyms and what they mean, but the headline is that we have a ton of federal funding represents about $1.5 trillion opportunity, economic opportunity to redesign our basic infrastructure to be more circular and more sustainable.
Pippa Shawley 05:44
And you've talked like about federal work there. Danielle, Jon, could you talk about the state? Because I think that's quite interesting with the US that you've got this state at this state level versus federal level.
Jon Smieja 05:55
Yeah, it's, um, it's turning into a bit of a patchwork policy situation over here in the US, the you know, the the the policies that Danielle talked about are largely incentives, right? Financial incentives, but we are starting to see some disincentives for linear economy to five states in the US have now passed extended producer responsibility for packaging. Another 10 have introduced policies just in the last year that have not passed yet. We've also got additional extended producer responsibility for batteries, carpet, electronics, paint, some considerations around textiles. So the sort of extended producer responsibility policy landscape is getting very complicated here in the US. And then we've also got additional state state mandates, like the buy clean California Act, which is incentivizing lower carbon materials for buildings include steel, glass and insulation. But ultimately that is a sort of a back door approach to incentivizing the circular economy, because we know that those reused, recycled materials are going to have lower embodied carbon than the virgin materials in those cases. And then the last one I might mention is that there are a bunch of cities and counties throughout the US that have implemented deconstruction policies, deconstruction incentives for buildings to try to save building materials from going to the landfill. So we are seeing a lot of local and state action and you know, sort of trying to pair that with the federal action is what's going to be tricky here in the US in the coming years.
Pippa Shawley 07:28
And do you think that patchwork approach that you talked about is a reason why the US has historically lagged a bit behind other parts of the world here?
Jon Smieja 07:37
It's definitely possible we have, we have a federal government that often is, you know, split between the two major parties here. And so it's, it's often slow to act on on some of these policies that aren't, aren't budget related, aren't needs for the next two months. And so the states have, have sort of worked to fill that gap. And because of that. Yes, we've had sort of slow national movement. California has been a leader in many cases. And the nice thing about California being a leader here in the US is it does drive most of the economy towards whatever policy they're implementing, because most companies are not going to sell different products to California than they are to the rest of the United States. So with California leading the way we are getting there, but yeah, it's a little bit slower than we'd like to see.
Pippa Shawley 08:24
So Danielle, we are talking during New York climate week, and we're talking two months ahead of the election. As Jon mentioned, we have a lot of listeners in the US. So if people want to get involved in this transition to a circular economy, what should they be looking out for? What are some steps they can take.
Danielle Holly 08:41
So one thing is to follow our work. We have a North America newsletter that provides an overview of what's happening in North America in the circular economy. But beyond that, my call to the folks that are listening in the US is to look for the circular economy in your day to day life and jobs. Because what is, we often talk about the circular economy as this new concept that we're pushing or building visibility for that that's anchoring and taking hold. But the reality is, is that it already exists in so many ways and in so many parts of our life and it remains unnamed, and the more that we can pull out the value of those practices that are already part of our day to day life, in work and at home, the more that we'll be able to really make the circular economy a full systemic reality for us. Right now, we talk about it in what I call the ivory towers of the big cities, but there's a strong case for economic prosperity, both on the coast and in the heartlands in the States. It's really something that transcends political divisiveness, and I think that, to Jon's point, is part of why we've been slower in us to really realize the circular economies, because we have divisiveness and a backlash against all things environmental, social and governance, that really is a misnomer and a misunderstanding of the concepts and the practices that are underneath.
Pippa Shawley 10:15
Did you notice that as well? Jon, what was it like at Trellis with your your audiences?
Jon Smieja 10:21
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, our audiences are well, first of all, they're growing in almost every way. So the corporate the corporates that we focus our newsletters, our events and our website coverage on, are still growing their teams. They're still working hard to try to implement all sustainability practices, very much circularity included. You know, to go back to what, what Danielle said, we also, we have a newsletter that folks can follow that has a lot of circular economy coverage. There are a few really good events here in the US talking about circular economy. One thing that I think about a lot as I think of companies trying to implement circular economy is that the people thinking up projects trying to push their companies forward really have to focus on making both the economic and the climate case for circular economy, because their companies are so focused on those two things. And you know, most companies now have more projects that have a 12 to 18 month return on investment than they can fund. So if you have a five year circular economy plan, you either have to make a really, really good argument for that, or you need to figure out how to shorten, shorten the return on investment. So I think we all because of the way, you know, the economy runs in the US, we all need to think more about what the return on investment is, how to make sure that it's a good investment for the company, and also tie it to the climate, climate activities that we have. And
Pippa Shawley 11:47
if we were to speak again in, say, 5-10 years, what, what would you like to have seen happen in that in that gap?
Jon Smieja 11:55
You know, I would start by, I would start by saying, we have had a lot of really positive pilot programs here in the US, whether it's reusable packaging, reusable bags, deconstruction in certain cities and a lot of them have been successful and then haven't turned into long term action. So what I'd love to see in the coming years is transitioning all of these great pilot programs into permanent programs that people can start to get used to and start to make part of their everyday lives. You know, there's, there's nothing quite as important in a transition like that as companies just, you know, getting caught trying, like, try new things, put new ideas out there. You know, what we need to do. And this goes back to what Danielle said about people seeing the circular economy in their everyday lives. Not only do they need to see it, but it needs to be integrated so it's not in a separate inconvenience on top of what they're already doing. And I think we've got a lot of opportunity to do that in pretty much every sector of the economy, if we, if we really invest in it over the coming years.
Pippa Shawley 13:01
And Danielle, what about you? Do you agree with Jon? Is there anything else you'd like to see happen in the next five to 10 years?
Danielle Holly 13:07
I wholeheartedly agree. Would reinforce all of the above. And two quick things, I think, not quick, but systemic things. One is, I'd like to see the Circular Economy come out of this box of environment sustainability. It really does transcend that, and that's what we were talking about before, in terms of it, its value and benefit really not being a divisive question at all. That's kind of macro and then micro would love to see to what John said at the top, to decouple revenue from the production of new goods and materials. Would love to see an increase in companies measuring and making progress on circular business models, and the percentage of their revenue that comes from circular business models, because I think that's one of the most handed the most tangible indicators we have of moving towards a circular economy.
Pippa Shawley 14:07
Yeah, I think we've really rattled through the overview of what's going on in the US, but it's definitely not the last time we'll talk about this and and we'll dig down into a lot of those topics as they develop. But thank you for joining us today, Jon and Danielle.
Jon Smieja 14:21
Yeah, thanks so much for having us.
Danielle Holly 14:23
Thank you, Pippa.
Pippa Shawley 14:24
Great! Thank you. And if you'd like to find out more about the circular economy work in in the US, you can find links to some of the things we discussed in the show notes. And while you're there, it would be great if you left us a review to help others discover the Circular Economy Show. Thank you and see you next time.
