On 22 May, Nancy Bocken Professor at the IIIEE, gave a keynote speech at the Gordon Research Conference in Industrial Ecology held in Switzerland. The title of the speech was "Experimentation and Slow Consumption: Two Key Strategies in the Transition to a Circular Economy”.
Abstract:
The Circular Economy has been positioned as a key lever for driving sustainability transitions in business. It has the potential to address multiple SDGs simultaneously. However, despite the potential, and excitement about the concept, the uptake in business is lagging behind. Hence, experimentation with novel circular business approaches is needed. Moreover, there is a risk that the concept is not used to its full potential including more difficult strategies such as slowing consumption and resource use. This research introduces slow consumption and experimentation as well as the intersection between these concepts, and proposes possible novel research approaches and directions to achieve absolute reductions in resource use.