A Flow of Wealth or a Wealth of Flows?

[KEN WEBSTER,
A Flow of Wealth or a Wealth of Flows?]

The circular economy come from nowhere
in the last 7 years.

You have an EU package
on the circular economy,

you've got the World Economic Forum
working hard on that,

you've got great expectations from cities
and governments.

At the recent Helsinki meeting,
there were 90 countries

and nearly 1700 delegates --

In one hall looking at
the circular economy

over a number of days.

This is very exciting.

♪ (music) ♪

In Academia there are now
hundreds of papers

and many more [inaudible]

And it's entering into the teaching --
particularly in business and engineering.

♪ (music) ♪

I think the question has to be,

what is it about the circular economy
which is so appealing?

♪ (music) ♪

I think we have to go back to the basics
of what an economy is.

It asks three questions, really.

It asks, what to produce?
How to produce it?

And, who get the benefit?

It's not only got three questions,
it's got three main components.

Every economy has flows of material,
flows of energy,

and flows of information --
particularly money.

If you look at the textbook,
they have an image, almost,

of a central heating system.

You got two sectors to it,
households and firms;

capital and labour.

Money flows between the two.

Wages are paid, goods are produced.
income comes back into the firm. {1:32}