Coca-Cola, Chanel, IKEA, Google, Starbucks, VISA. What do these companies have in common?
“Partnership with the global circular economy network ‘The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’”
The Ellan MacArthur Foundation is recognized as a leading authority in the circular economy and supports companies to implement eco-friendly policies.
The foundation was established by world-record yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur.
Navigator Ellen
Ellen has been a world-class yachtswoman. At the age of 21, she took second place in her first solo yachting round-the-world competition! At the age of 25 she challenged and broke the world record for solo yachting around the world! Ellen used the prize money to set up a charity fund to help young cancer patients.
‘Resources are Finite’ Learned Through Sailing
“When sailing the high seas, it’s the resources, not the storm, sea, or wind, that one must be most concerned about. The experience of sailing has shaped my instinct to manage earth’s resources.”
High Profiles interview
Ellen learned the value of resources while living on the ocean, where she had no choice but to conserve resources as much as possible.
However, the amount of waste choking the sea is ever growing.
Ellen keenly felt the looming crisis that Earth’s resources will be exhausted before long if the linear economy of ‘resource extraction → production → disposal’ continues unabated.
After seeking advice from experts in various fields to solve this problem, Ellen found a solution.
⌜The Circular Economy⌟ The circular economy is an economic model that uses resources while circulating them for as long as possible, for example, by converting waste like food garbage into wealth.
Popularizing the Circular Economy
Ellen established the ‘Ellen MacArthur Foundation’ to transform the world economy into a circular economy. Her first step was research in collaboration with universities and institutions. When human products are classified into two ‘cycles’, we can have a structure that can be cycled without waste.
1. The technological cycle is a structure in which resources cycle through the stages of sharing, repairing, reusing, and recycling. 2. The biological cycle returns used products to nature through biodegradation.
In 2012, the Foundation’s research report was formally introduced at the Davos Forum, and it received great attention from numerous business people.
Ellen creates a network to enable participants in the circular economy to take a bigger leap forward. 1,200 companies including Google, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Gucci, IKEA, and Walmart, led by world-renowned asset management company BlockRock, have joined the global circular economy network.
A Global Trend: The Circular Economy
It’s not just companies. Cities, countries and larger organizations are preparing policies to participate in the circular economy.
For example, France was rated as Europe’s worst waste emitter in 2019.
However, France became the first country in the world to adopt circular economy legislation with consultation from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
The Circular Economy Act drastically banned companies from discharging non-food waste, allowing companies to collect their products and reuse, donate or recycle them. Surprisingly, a voluntary circular economy network has emerged in France, creating 70,000 jobs.
Like France, China, Japan, Chile, the EU and dozens of cities around the world are becoming circular economies.
The wave of circular economy caused by Ellen sets a great precedent for solving problems of mankind jointly.