This post is written by Carolina Pozo, Founder, AVANTI Social Innovation.

  • The problem: The way cities are designed and growing is not sustainable.

  • Why it matters: Climate change and poverty are still not being addressed.

  • The solution: A circular economy model can repurpose waste to build new cities’ infrastructure and generate positive socio-economic impact.

The way cities have been designed and continue to grow is not addressing the biggest challenges we face in the world: increasing urban density, inequality, poverty, global warming and excessive waste resulting from inefficient global food supply chains.

How do we build a new sustainable infrastructure? In the past few years, some local and national governments have become more active in the design of smart cities projects, however there are very limited empirical examples of smart and sustainable infrastructure including: Skellefteå eco-town in Sweden or the recently announced Telosa city in the US. These eco-conscious projects are among some of the efforts in urban innovation. However, how do we make these efforts scalable and accessible to the rest of the world? Governments and organisations should start focusing efforts to design and build functional, modular and smart infrastructure that can be scaled and replicated around the world for any city, town or village. The type of construction materials is a key component, and that is precisely where a circular economy model comes into place.

"Governments can start building incentives for public-private partnerships and facilitate the reuse, recycle and repurpose of waste."

The circular economy is described by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as “a systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. It is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. It is underpinned by a transition to renewable energy and materials. Transitioning to a circular economy entails decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. This represents a systemic shift that builds long-term resilience, generates business and economic opportunities, and provides environmental and societal benefits.”

A new, great opportunity

There is great opportunity in moving away from linear models of production to circular ones, where integrated supply chains can be traceable and what is now considered waste can be repurposed as construction materials for new infrastructure. This is not only relevant from an environmental perspective but also for its economic and social impact; however we still need to build awareness and invest in capacity building among policy makers to build an incentive framework to promote investment in the circular economy projects.

Waste management has become such a complex issue for many countries to manage, however when we address it from an industry specific perspective and empirical use cases we can better understand the value chain.

The cacao supply chain is a great example to understand the applicability of circular economy and the potential use of waste. Today’s economic success in the chocolate industry comes with significant social and environmental costs, a linear model that causes extreme poverty, excessive waste and environmental damage. About 80% of the cacao fruit is discarded in the cacao harvesting/refinement process. This waste includes: residual cacao pod from harvesting, residual pulp discarded from fermentation, cacao shells discarded from winnowing/extraction and waste water. The resulting biomass occupies large areas and raises environmental and social concerns.

Repurposing waste for good

Wasted cacao parts alongside plastic and other materials are immensely available in most areas around the world. A circular economy model can be applied to produce new cacao-based products using pods, husks, and beans, such as new innovative food products, construction materials, medicines, cosmetics, bioplastics packaging, plant-based leather, among others.

This would generate additional sources of income for cacao farmers and generate new valuable assets for unexplored industries, such as construction. Governments can start building incentives for public-private partnerships and facilitate the reuse, recycle and repurpose of waste - from cacao and other relevant industries - and to set the standards to build new cities’ infrastructure. These mechanisms, accompanied by clean energy and technology, can offer a new standard of how we want to live and create conscious and ethical design standards and sustainability policies for new generations.

Mapping waste in the production process and tracing the global supply chain for specific industries can help us understand the economic value and opportunity of new biomaterials, and their applicability in the construction of smart eco cities, a new sustainable asset class for the world.

Circular economy models should become a standard for policy design, sustainable infrastructure the standard for new cities and what we know as waste as a new valuable asset.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)