A Circular Economy Strategy for Scotland

1. Introduction - the benefit of change

A circular economy drives sustainable growth, competitiveness, innovation and jobs, and is vital to achieving our climate and environmental goals.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering a circular approach to our economy, where we move from a "take, make and dispose" model to one where we value the materials we use. Economic models based on ever-increasing resource extraction and high carbon intensity are simply not sustainable. That is why embedding circularity within our economy is essential to ensure resilience and sustainability.

A more circular economy brings benefits at all levels (see figure 1). At a national level it can increase the resilience of our supply chains, promote innovation, create jobs, drive skills development, and ensure the country is well positioned to take advantage of key global macro-economic trends over the coming decades.

A circular economy benefits individual businesses by increasing efficiency, reducing costs, providing resilience to commodity price fluctuations, and responding to consumer demand. It strengthens communities by providing local employment opportunities, skills development and lower cost options to access the goods we need.

It is also fundamental to tackling climate change by reducing carbon impacts across the lifecycle of products, as well as other global challenges like biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution, by decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. Such a shift requires systemic change, where we reduce overall consumption and economic growth goes hand-in-hand with sustainable resource management.

The image is an infographic titled 'The Circular Economy and its Benefits'. It consists of concentric coloured circles with icons and text, illustrating the principles and benefits of a circular economy.

The focus of the infographic shows the Circular Economy process which starts with 'Take less' and links to a cluster of actions surrounding the core activity of 'Use'. The surrounding actions are: 'Make', 'Recycle', 'Reuse', 'Remanufacture' and 'Repair.' These are connected with lines and arrows, showing a continuous cycle between actions. The process ends with a line to 'Waste less'.

Around the Circular Economy process, the environmental benefits of the Circular Economy are in a green circle and listed as:

• Protect biodiversity
• Reduce consumption
• Value resources
• Lower carbon emissions
• Reduce pollution

The outer circle is purple and lists the economic benefits of a circular economy as:

• Investment
• Innovation
• Resilience
• Jobs
• Prosperity
• Skills

For a circular economy to work effectively it needs to drive economic growth while aligning with the 'waste hierarchy'.^[2] This sets out the optimal use for materials, starting with prevention (an alternative term for 'reducing' the use of materials), moving to reuse and then recycling, including energy and material recovery. It is only when we have exhausted all of the other alternatives that disposal through landfill should be used. A circular economy should always endeavour to keep materials in use as high up the waste hierarchy and for as long as possible and ultimately decouple economic activity from resource consumption. This strategy has been drafted having regard to the waste hierarchy (see figure 2).

The image is an infographic titled 'The Waste Hierarchy'. It consists of triangle with separated headings illustrating for a circular economy to work effectively it needs to drive economic growth while aligning with the waste hierarchy. It sets out the optimal use for materials, starting with prevention (an alternative term for 'reducing' the use of materials), moving to reuse and then recycling, including energy and material recovery and finally highlighting it is only when all of these other alternatives have been exhausted that disposal through landfill should be used.

Figure 2 illustrates the steps within the waste hierarchy. The waste hierarchy ranks waste management options according to the best environmental outcome taking into consideration the lifecycle of the material. The waste hierarchy gives top priority to preventing waste. When waste is created, it gives priority to preparing it for reuse, then recycling, then other recovery, and last of all disposal

Further detail on the development of the strategy is included at appendix 1.