Helping to facilitate the transition to a circular economy for Australia
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The Australian Circular Economy (ACE) Hub will be Australia’s go-to resource for circular economy thinking and action. It will provide companies, individuals and communities with the tools and education to help implement circularity. The program officially launched in the fourth quarter of 2020 with the support of the Federal Government.
Circularity is how nature works. The great natural cycles – Carbon, Water, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Sulphur – are essential to our existence. Before complex human systems, the planet was already functioning in a fully circular manner where its infinite cycles produced no such thing as ‘waste’.
Our current economic model is mostly linear: take, make, dispose. We extract materials, use these to produce something, then at the end of the product’s useful life we throw it away. The growing acknowledgement that we have an urgent need to protect our finite resources and reduce emissions has led to a global movement towards the circular economy.
The circular economy is an innovative system for rethinking the way we use products and services for the benefit of society, the environment and business. In this new system, waste and pollution are designed out, products and materials are kept in use and natural systems are regenerated. Pioneers the world over are already using principles of the circular economy to reconfigure and disrupt the way we deliver goods and services.
Over recent years there has been an adoption of recycling to recover some resources, but the circular economy is much more than recycling. Through shifting the way we design, make, consume and repurpose products and materials, emissions are reduced and resources are efficiently used and kept in circulation, at their highest value, as long as possible. All these approaches will help develop a prosperity that is both restorative and regenerative by design. On a planet with finite resources and a growing population, we have no choice but to adopt circularity.
The shift to a circular economy requires a whole of systems change. New collaborative relationships between business, society, governments and individuals are essential in facilitating this transition. Planet Ark is taking the lead on creating the Australian Circular Economy (ACE) Hub and Marketplace, which will facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration and provide implementation tools in order to help Australia transition to a circular economy.
Planet Ark is currently seeking corporate partners and collaborators for the ACE Hub. For more information, please get in contact.
This program launched in Q4 2020. To keep up to date with developments, sign up to our newsletter.
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