Hey Bricos,

I'm not usually impressed by think-tanks. Chatham House is about as "UK
Establishment" as they get, but have a look at these points from one of
their latest publications, "A Global Redesign? Shaping the Circular
Economy"...

* A fundamentally new model of industrial organization is needed to
de-link rising
prosperity from resource consumption growth – one that goes beyond
incremental
efficiency gains to deliver transformative change.

* A ‘circular economy’ (CE) is an approach that would transform the
function of
resources in the economy. Waste from factories would become a valuable input
to another process – and products could be repaired, reused or upgraded
instead
of thrown away.

* At the global level, a CE could help enable developing countries to
industrialize and
developed countries to increase wellbeing and reduce vulnerability to
resource price
shocks – but without placing unsustainable pressure on natural resources and
breaching environmental limits

* There is a window of opportunity to avoid replicating the
resource-intensive
production models of developed countries and “leapfrog” to a more
sustainable
mode of development

* If circular economy practices are to be rapidly scaled up, a major
push will be
needed to overcome barriers, not least the dominance of the existing
resource-
and energy-intensive growth models

These are the sorts of issues that Bricolabs have been thinking about,
and acting upon, for some years.

Of course, it may be that Bricos and Chatham House still have
differences of emphasis - while Bricos may be more concerned with local
capacities, social and information economies, individual wellbeing and
community resilience, Chatham House's recommendations are likely to
influence people whose primary concern is how to sustain growth as India
and China's economies push world resources to breaking point.

However, I still suggest that this sort of engagement is a very good
sign, and we may have more in common with a rapidly, (some would say
"desperately") reforming mainstream than many Bricos may be comfortable
with!

Best regards,

James
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