Five lessons from Sitra’s circular economy roadmap workshops
By: Anna Pakkala
Tags: Government, Circulareconomy, Business, Sustainability, Funding

A national plan for implementing circular economy — easy, right?

In 2016, the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra launched a circular economy roadmap outlining the actions, pilot projects and goals to be reached by 2025 to make Finland a globally competitive leader in circular economy.

In the fall of 2018, a review of this roadmap took place in a series of workshops to ensure that the roadmap was taking the nation in the right direction. I was invited to be part of the group of professionals participating, and together with representatives from ministries, cities, municipalities, industry federations, research groups as well as some of Finland’s largest companies, spent several fall mornings assessing the previous roadmap priorities, filling in gaps, and proposing new pilot projects to help Finland get swiftly on its way towards a truly circular economy.

Photo by Štefan Štefančík on Unsplash

So, what did I learn from sitting in a room with the key stakeholders making circular economy a reality in Finland?

1. The private sector is moving and the public sector needs to pick up the pace.

Enticed by the business potential of being a leader in sustainability, the private sector seems to be chomping at the bit to get started on pilot projects and partnerships for circular economy. Meanwhile, the public sector lags behind in concrete action, seemingly because it is still unclear what that action should be. Many recognize that the public sector wields great influence over how circular models will play out in our society, and are crying out for more legislation, taxation or subsidies to make experimentation in circular models easier. It’s time for the public sector to take a page out of the private sector’s books, and move from planning to doing.

2. More cooperation is needed across sectors, but few want to take ownership.

Regardless of sector, everyone recognizes that no one alone can build a circular model: the key is partnerships, across industries, government ministries, cities and between the private and public sector. However, there is an inherent problem with this: dilution of ownership and therefore, accountability. In the first few hours of being together, the discussion threatened to devolve into finger-pointing over who wasn’t doing enough or monologues on how much one’s own sector had done. Later, the proposed pilot projects and action items were, for the most part, dumped onto various ministries or public funding agency Business Finland (with a few notable exceptions, where private sector companies nominated themselves to take the lead on pilots closely affecting their industry).

Is this a symptom of the public sector not pulling their weight or a general unwillingness of organizations to take ownership? Regardless, it’s time for players across industries and sectors to stop looking around at others. Instead, they must stick their own neck out for circular economy, even when it might seem daunting. After all, that’s how real leaders are made.

3. Circular economy education and assessment must be incorporated into all project funding processes.

Perhaps the most crucial action items that emerged from the workshops were a need for more funding for circular economy projects and for more circular economy education to a wider audience. It is critical to assess all spending, public and private, on the basis of its contributions to circular economy and climate action. This would mean getting rid of specialized “green funds”, recognizing that if we want the country to be a leader in circular economy, we must shift all our investments to advance this goal. Professionals allocating funds would then need to be educated on circular economy, and most importantly, professionals across fields would need to understand, strategize and innovate for circular economy. This means getting academics and sustainability professionals out of their bubble, and bringing practical circular economy to all businesses and government bodies, as well as ensuring students are introduced to circular economy well before university. Hand-in-hand with this wider circular economy education, funding bodies and businesses alike will need to focus more on long-term thinking and scalability of circular economy when assessing projects and business models.

4. We need to be weary of hype without stalling action.

It didn’t matter what sector or organization a participant represented — everyone was clearly excited about the potential of circular economy. Many saw circular economy innovation as a key tool to re-imagine our communities, grow business, and boost Finland’s image and competitiveness globally. This excitement was often reflected in project descriptions which referred to circular economy solutions as “win-win-win” for business, people and environment alike. But as I’ve previously written, win-win scenarios can be dangerous, ignoring solutions that might in fact be more optimal for people or environment than business would tolerate. In addition, the potential negative consequences and rebound effect of circular economy solutions were worryingly absent from the conversation. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype when preaching to a choir of sustainability enthusiasts. While experiments and pilots are where we can test out ideas, it is important that pilot projects are critically observed for secondary effects, and that we don’t allow circular economy to become a supplement to business as usual.

5. Circular economy may be the hardest, yet most vital thing, we have worked toward as a nation.

The Sitra workshops provided a sampling of why circular economy work is so difficult: it requires stakeholders from very different backgrounds and with very different priorities to come together, often building an entirely new way of thinking and doing things. The entities we are working with are huge and require time to get moving. However, there is one thing we all agreed on, and that is that we do not have any other choice… and that we are running out of time. The move away from a linear system to a circular one is a requirement for achieving carbon reductions and ensuring a safe and prospering country, and planet, for us all. The clear, underlying sentiment was that the time for talk is over. The time for action is now. In the end, not one person questioned the goal — the only argument was on how we get there.