Skip Navigation or Skip to Content
Back

During the 2019-20 school year, National Museums Scotland worked with Ostrero to raise awareness of the Circular Economy.

What is the Circular Economy?

The Circular Economy is about making things last. It is the opposite of our current Linear Economy, where we take things out of the ground, make something with them, use them maybe only once, and dispose of them, without worrying too much about where they end up.

In a Circular Economy:

  • Everything feeds into something else, just as in nature 
  • Everything is powered by renewable energy 
  • Everything is designed to last 
  • People share or hire some things, instead of having to own them 

Why do we need a Circular Economy?

  • Our Linear Economy isn’t sustainable – each year we use up nature’s resources almost twice as fast as the planet’s ecosystems can regenerate them 
  • We are in a climate change emergency, biodiversity is in crisis and 60% of the world’s species are at risk of extinction – all due to human activity 
  • There will be 3 billion more people on Earth by 2050. We need to change how we design and use things to make sure there is enough to go round for everyone.

Back to top