Digging Deeper Glen Corder and Artem Golev look at the mining industry's role in a circular economy

摘要

HOW does the mining industry fit into the emerging new paradigm of the circular economy? After all,it is a sector with a business model that relies on the extraction and processing of finite minerals and metals resources.While waste minimisation can help reduce costs and prevent environmental and social legacy issues in either the near or long term,the traditional view of the mining sector is that it has a’take-make-dispose! or linear economy,approach to its working practices.In trying to answer this question,it is worthwhile to think about how the circular economy is defined and where it is making impact.While there are several definitions of the circular economy,one commonly-accepted definition is an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design and aims to keep products,components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times as well as accelerating the transition from a conventional linear economy.Supporting this definition is the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's three key principles for advancing the circular economy: design out waste and pollution;keep products and materials in use;and regenerate natural systems.This will,it suggests,promote gradual decoupling of economic activity from the consumption of finite resources,and designing waste out of the system.In doing so,economic,natural,and social capital will be built through the circular model1.