Any post-2030 sustainable development agenda will likely require the current SDG framework, if not dropped altogether, to be reformed and revised. Here’s how the circular economy could fit into a revised set of SDGs, or a successor regime, as a more central part of the policy ecosystem.
Most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be achieved by 2030. Only 17 per cent of the SDG targets are on track to be met globally by 2030, with the remaining 83 per cent showing limited progress, no progress or regression. Instead of abandoning the SDGs, prominent voices in the policy world have proposed both revising the current set of targets and extending the SDG framework itself to 2050. This presents a clear opportunity not only to embed the circular economy far more explicitly in the sustainable development agenda, but to make it central to that agenda.
One of the most effective ways to pursue this, we argue, would be to leverage the high-level UN blueprints for the trajectory of the global community towards 2030 and beyond. These are set forth in the UN secretary-general’s ‘Our Common Agenda’ initiative and in the ‘Pact for the Future’, the negotiated outcome document to be adopted at the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024.
The idea of these initiatives is to amplify global policy efforts to realize the SDGs and create a sustainable, peaceful and secure future. This is where the circular economy could fit in. Although only mentioned once so far in the latest draft (Rev.4) of the Pact for the Future, the circular economy has much to offer in terms of transforming the current development paradigm, moving it away from reliance on unsustainable industries, outdated technologies, unequal consumption patterns and finite resources.
Part of the opportunity for promoting the circular economy lies in its appeal as an antidote to the much-criticized lack of coordination between the SDGs.
This challenge has not been addressed by the current set of SDGs, but by inserting the concept of circularity prominently into the ongoing debate about the future of the SDGs, and by positioning it as a solution to many of the challenges motivating UN efforts to get SDG delivery on track, policymakers and activists could bring the circular economy into the mainstream of UN policy planning.
Part of the opportunity for promoting the circular economy lies in its appeal as an antidote to the much-criticized lack of coordination between the SDGs. Since 2015, SDG actions and implementation have often been undertaken with little alignment between each goal, which in some cases has created conflicts or trade-offs between targets. While it is clearly possible to advance some aspects of particular SDGs independently, the circular economy offers a natural coordinating logic where coherence is needed. For example, the circular economy’s potential role in action on ending hunger (SDG 2) by promoting regenerative and restorative farming inherently complements action on climate change (SDG 13), and on sustainable land use and biodiversity (SDG 15). Similarly, the creation of new types of jobs in the circular economy would be consistent with the goals of ending poverty (SDG 1), promoting gender equality (SDG 5), providing ‘decent work’ (SDG 8), supporting industry and innovation (SDG 9), and more.
The argument for integrating circular economy principles, practices and strategies into a post-2030 SDG architecture is reinforced by the sense that there is no time to lose. Work needs to start immediately because, as with the SDGs themselves, systems transformation towards full circularity is an unavoidably long process and will not be achieved by 2030. Policy actors will need to make a considered case for the circular economy, achieve buy-in from multiple stakeholders, and build momentum as they seek to reorient systems and structures of production and consumption around revised goals. All this work will need to be informed by knowledge of national policy frameworks, new finance models and innovative technology options.
But what would an actual circular future look like? The rest of this chapter imagines what shape an inclusive global circular economy might take in 2050, what its key elements might be, and how these elements would intersect with (and support) both the current SDGs and whatever comes after them. This indicative ‘future’ is presented as a blueprint for change, with proposed targets for increasing circular economy activity across all 17 of the current SDG categories.
These targets and the proposed means of achieving them have been developed through the ‘Global Roadmapping Process for an Inclusive Circular Economy’ (see Chapters 1 and 3). This Chatham House-led collaboration with 13 partners has drawn on inputs from diverse stakeholders spanning the globe. It places particular emphasis on voices and perspectives from the Global South, in part to address multilateralism’s uneven history of engaging with developing countries fairly and effectively. The stakeholders in the consultation process have been deeply involved in shaping the circular economy objectives proposed here, and have brought insights rooted in their lived experiences, local contexts and unique challenges.
In Figure 2, we present some of the findings of our stakeholder consultations graphically, outlining the new targets the SDGs might hypothetically contain when adjusted for greater involvement of the circular economy. We have overlaid the 17 current SDGs with these indicative targets to show where the circular economy and the sustainable development agenda might share common ground in 2050.
For now, we have assumed no change in the future number of SDGs or in the 17 overarching categories they cover. In the evolving post-2030 development framework, it is entirely possible that the exact number of SDGs and their focus may change, but this would almost certainly not diminish the importance of the circular economy to implementation of any revised goals. For the practical purposes of this research paper, however, and in the absence of any definitive indication of what a new line-up of SDGs would look like, we decided to map our ideas to the current SDGs.
