It’s no secret that the world has a habit of consuming cheap products that are destined for the dumpster. The global economy uses approximately 100 billion metric tons of resources each year, the equivalent weight of more than 16,000 Great Pyramids of Giza. This includes fossil fuels, metals, minerals, and plant- and animal-derived products such as food, wood and clothes.
Approximately 75% of that total comes from non-renewable resources. Relentless mining, agricultural expansion and trash disposal are damaging the environment and leading to concerns about global resource scarcity. The problem will only become more severe — global resource extraction is projected to surge by a staggering 150% by 2060.
However, by employing the principles of “reducing, reusing and recycling,” — a basis for the circular economy — the world can help prevent the triple planetary crisis of climate change, loss of biodiversity, and excessive pollution and waste, while creating a more resilient and efficient economic system.
For the vision of a circular economy to become a reality, the world needs to take a holistic, lifecycle approach that considers all stages of a product’s journey from the moment raw materials are extracted from the earth to the end of the product’s useful lifetime. In this more sustainable system, overconsumption is reduced and products are designed from the start to last longer, be repairable and be easily recycled.
Many countries have begun to embrace the concept of a circular economy, most notably in the European Union. But as of yet, the world isn’t making enough headway to achieve a sustainable balance of resource use. Here are 9 things to know about global progress toward a circular economy.
1. The world needs to cut resource consumption in half by 2050
There is a reason that “reduce” comes first in the popular refrain “reduce, reuse and recycle” — it is the most important part of the equation. The average person has a material footprint of 12.6 metric tons per year — the weight of about two and a half African elephants — though this varies widely by country. This includes their direct consumption of resources, including fossil fuels, minerals and metals as well as materials from plants and animals such as clothes, textiles, furniture and foods. Material footprint also takes into account materials that are part of production processes, which a person may never encounter.
Resource consumption is a key driver of harmful environmental impacts. The extraction and processing of materials accounts for over 55% of greenhouse gas emissions, up to 40% of health impacts from airborne particulate matter, 90% of water stress and 90% of land-use-related biodiversity loss. Reducing these impacts by using fewer resources is essential to build a more sustainable future.
Globally, the amount of materials consumed per capita increased between 2000 and 2011 alongside income growth. Promisingly, it has been mostly flat since then, perhaps due to a slowdown in infrastructure construction or increased technological efficiency. To ensure a sustainable level of resources for future generations, global consumption will need to be reduced from 12.6 metric tons per capita in 2022 to below 5 metric tons per capita by 2050.
While changes across society will be needed to reduce the material footprint, there are ways people can avoid unnecessary consumption in their daily lives. For example, fast fashion trends are encouraging people to buy new clothing more often. As a result, between 2002 and 2016, the average number of times a new piece of clothing is worn decreased by 36%. Material footprint can also be reduced by avoiding unnecessary food waste. Currently, 19% of food available to consumers is wasted before it is eaten.
2. A quarter of the world’s population consumes more than half of its material resources
Not every country holds the same responsibility for the consumption of resources. At the extreme ends, a person in Luxembourg consumes on average 56 times more material each year than a person in Afghanistan.
Looking at the top 25% of the world’s population living in countries with the highest material footprint per capita, they consume 52% of the world’s resources. Meanwhile, an equivalent population from countries with the lowest material footprint per capita consume only 6% of the world’s resources.
The top 10 countries that have the highest total resource consumption are China, the United States, India, Brazil, Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Russia, Turkey and Canada. To better understand the level of responsibility of each of these countries, we can look at which of them consume materials at the highest rate per person. Canada tops the list, followed by the U.S. and then China, while India and Indonesia are the lowest of the top 10, well below the global per capita average.
3. The EU is a world leader in the circular economy, yet only 12% of its new products are made with recycled materials
The EU is becoming a world leader in circular economy policy. It has adopted a circular economy action plan and launched a raft of policies to promote circular product design, increase recycling rates and label products with information buyers need to make sustainable choices. The EU is also the only region that measures the share of materials used for production that come from recycled sources.
Despite this leadership, only 12% of materials used in production processes in the EU in 2023 were recycled materials, which means the region still has a long way to go. The leading countries within the EU include Belgium, Estonia, France, Italy, Malta and the Netherlands, which all achieved shares between 15% and 31%. On the other hand, in Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania, less than 5% of products were made from recycled materials. As many of the EU’s new circular economy policies were implemented after the most recent data was available in 2023, these percentages may increase going forward.
Recycling of critical minerals and other metals has recently drawn attention because of rising demand and concerns about sufficient supply. In the EU, 35% of cobalt, 7% of light rare earth elements and 6% of heavy rare earth elements come from recycling. To help recyclers recover and use those materials, the EU is introducing policies that require manufacturers to provide information identifying the specific critical raw materials in their technology products, batteries and renewable energy equipment.
4. Recycling of municipal waste is gradually increasing, but much more is needed by 2030
At the end of a product’s lifecycle, it’s important that the materials within it are recycled.
Cities and local governments in many countries play a central role in recycling and waste management. They handle municipal waste, which includes the types of materials households and businesses throw away. Approximately two thirds of municipal waste consists of paper, cardboard, plastic, food and yard waste.
Data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) 38 member countries shows that around 35% of their municipal waste is recycled. This is an improvement from decades past, but the rate of recycling still needs to grow. If all OECD countries were to adopt the EU’s goal of recycling 60% of waste by 2030, they would need to accelerate growth in their municipal recycling rate by more than 10 times.
Better and more comprehensive waste collection, sorting and separation are necessary. While high-income countries collect 96% of their waste, low-income countries only collect 39%.
5. More data is needed to understand recycling rates of bulk trash, such as construction and demolition waste
Recycling non-municipal wastes such as vehicles, construction materials and industrial wastes is equally important to a circular economy as recycling municipal wastes. The statistics for non-municipal waste are limited, but there are a few data points that can provide some perspective.
Recycling rates of non-municipal wastes are typically high, as they are usually comprised of bulk amounts of just one type of material at a time. In the EU, 89% of vehicles were reused for parts or had their materials recycled at end of life in 2022. Likewise, 89% of construction and demolition waste was recycled in the EU in 2020 (the latest year of data available), though some of this was backfilling, which is a low-grade use of materials to fill holes in excavated areas.
Ideally, one would look at the total recycling rate of a country — the sum of municipal and non-municipal wastes — to monitor and advance progress toward a circular economy, but this data is limited to a small number of countries. As of 2020, the average total recycling rate in 23 EU countries and Japan was 54%.
Many manufacturers, retailers, recyclers and other private companies have made efforts to increase collection and recycling rates of various recyclables in pursuit of a circular economy. The world would benefit from a global monitoring system for circular economy to understand the impact that they are having.
6. Resource productivity growth, a key measure of circular economy progress, has stalled since 2000
There are two ways for the world to increase its economic output, as measured by gross domestic product. The first is to use more stuff. The second is to use the same amount of stuff but do so more efficiently (measured by resource productivity).
From 1970 to 2000, the world did both. It grew its economy by 2.7 times, which was partly because it increased its resource use by 1.9 times, but also because it increased its resource productivity by 1.4 times. However, since 2000, global resource productivity has mostly remained level (improving by only 4%). Economic growth has been achieved almost entirely due to using more resources, a relationship that needs to decouple.
Improving efficiency of resource use can be an effective way to limit resource impacts without compromising the economy. This could include investing in innovation to reduce material needs of technologies, eliminating waste in industrial products and utilizing byproducts of other sectors in a productive fashion.
7. People use products for a shorter time than they expect
Throwing a product away after a short time generates more waste and increases spending on replacements. There are two reasons that a product might be discarded early. First, consumers may desire a newer version of a technology, even when the current model is still operational. Second, a product may break down after a shorter time period than expected, especially if manufacturers lower product quality due to cost-cutting measures or planned obsolescence.
For example, according to European surveys on consumer electronics, people typically replace their televisions after seven years even though TVs are designed to last for 25 years, perhaps driven by the desire for a larger screen. On the other hand, consumers expect their new smartphones will last for five years, but will often replace them much sooner because the average smartphone is only designed to last for less than two years.
Following a circular economy model, products should be durable, easy to repair and upgrade, and satisfy consumer needs while lowering environmental impact.
8. 75 countries regulate single-use products
Reducing the use of single-use products is a good starting point for building a circular economy. Products that are used once and then thrown away, like plastic water bottles, can easily end up in our oceans, rivers and other fragile ecosystems.
As of 2018, which is the most recent year of data available, 75 countries had implemented one or more strong policies, such as taxes, consumer fees and bans on certain types of single-use products. There are multiple materials used in single-use products, but single-use plastics get the most global attention. For example, France aims at phasing-out single-use plastic packaging by 2040, and China and Saudi Arabia ban specific single-use plastics such as plastic bags. Effective policy and ambitious target setting are needed to change product design that avoids single-use cases.
9. More than 2,200 companies monitor their contributions to a circular economy
As of 2022, more than 2,200 companies voluntarily tracked metrics to inform themselves, investors and the public of the progress they are making toward a circular economy.
Two major initiatives promoted circular economy indicators for companies to use: Circular Transition Indicators by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Circulytics by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation (which as of 2022 is no longer accepting new company submissions).
Other efforts are underway to track progress toward a circular economy. The International Organization for Standardization published a new standard for measuring and assessing circularity performance in 2024. The EU introduced the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards including standards for circular economy. WBCSD and collaborators are attempting to establish a global protocol called the Global Circular Protocol.
This kind of corporate disclosure is becoming a new standard of action to gain business opportunities in a circular economy.
What’s at stake to progress toward a circular economy
Reducing the world’s massive material footprint is essential to limit climate change, prevent the loss of natural habitat and reduce harmful pollution and waste. Not only that, but resource usage and consumption can exacerbate social harms that come from extracting Earth’s resources.
For example, as of 2020, there were 112 million children engaged in child labor in the agriculture sector, a number that slightly increased since 2016. Global data is unavailable for child labor in other types of resource extraction. Mining, for example, can expose both adults and children to difficult conditions and health risks, like black lung disease. In 2021, there were 61 allegations of human rights violations in the mining of six critical minerals. Better resource governance is needed to prevent these social harms.
The world is just beginning to move toward a circular economy. Encouraging progress has been made, including by the EU and other forward-looking countries, but far more is needed for the circular economy to become the new economic paradigm.
On the individual level, people should aim to limit their material footprint. For example, they can reduce the use of single-use water bottles, buy less fast fashion and plan meals to avoid wasting food. On the business level, CEOs should monitor circular economy indicators and design products that last longer and can be easily recycled or reused. On the governmental level, new policies can be put in place to incentivize companies to make the right choices and work to distribute resources more equitably.
The world’s economy and systems of resource extraction are complex and require multifaceted solutions. But when in doubt, everything we need to do stems from lifecycle thinking and the three principles: reduce, reuse and recycle.