'Circular Economy' is a new buzzword, but largely among sustainability experts. Internationally, only EU parliamentarians deliberate on the subject at a policy level regularly, achieving limited success on cracking 'planned obsolescence'.
In India, there is an attempt by certain civil society organisations and think-tanks to promote the concept. It has gained momentum only after NITI Aayog put it in as a policy initiative. MoEFCC has taken lead in popularising the concept in collaboration with EU.
This animated video was made as an attempt to explain the concept of Circular Economy to the officials and industry associations, mostly as a conversation opener. The foremost agenda was to delink circular economy from waste management. It was important to point out that the new concept was a change in the system that rethinks the complete process of extraction, production and consumption.
We must confess that we are not clear what the industry and government think about reducing the level of consumption as a prerequisite for circular economy. After all, the current growth machine can only be oiled by ever increasing consumption!
Watch the video to understand the basic premise for circular economy. By the way, this opposes the current paradigm of linear economy.