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Carbon Brief handpicks and explains the most important climate and energy stories from China over the past fortnight. Subscribe for free here.
(China Briefing will return on 11 January.)
Key developments
China at COP28
BIG PRESENCE: China’s presence at COP28 this year loomed large, boasting the joint-third largest delegation with more than 1,400 badges issued, Carbon Brief analysis found.
WHO’S WHO: The delegation, headed by ministry of environment and ecology (MEE) vice-minister Zhao Yingmin, featured many high-ranking government officials, including MEE minister Huang Runqiu, special climate envoy and COP veteran Xie Zhenhua, as well as UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs Liu Zhenmin, who is expected to replace Xie as climate envoy after COP28.
FULL CALENDAR: China also hosted a jam-packed schedule of side events at its country pavilion, which topics ranging from methane emissions and “green” banking through to overseas energy investments and UK-China cooperation on climate science. Many events were attended by Carbon Brief. “The pavilion is always an interesting place to see what [China] want[s] the world to see about them,” Prof Alex Wang, co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles, tells Carbon Brief. “There’s more information available, there’s more societal involvement than ever before…That may be strategic, but it does also reflect genuine changes on the ground [in China].”
China declines to participate in loss-and-damage fund
EARLY SUCCESS: The opening of COP28 was marked by an agreement to “operationalise” the loss-and-damage fund, which Dr Jennifer Allen at the Earth Negotiations Bulletin termed a “big, big win”. Despite a donation by the United Arab Emirates “put[ting] the spotlight on China”, according to Politico, China did not pledge, with Chinese media coverage of the fund being muted.
EVOLVING RESPONSIBILITIES: China Dialogue quoted Avinash Persaud, Barbados’ special envoy for finance, saying: “79% of the stock of greenhouse gases come from the countries that would be defined as developed in 1992. A big part of the other remaining part of the emissions comes from China. I’m happy for us to think about ‘common, but differentiated responsibilities’ as being a vital principle, but not stuck in some particular point of time in measurement. They should be evolving common, but differentiated responsibilities…That would mean that, at some point, China should be a contributor [to the fund]”.
OTHER MECHANISMS: Yuan Ying, chief China representative at Greenpeace East Asia, argues that criticism of China’s position was misguided. China on a per-capita basis is poorer than the UAE – the only developing country to contribute to the fund – she tells Carbon Brief: “China is pretty clear that [payments from] the loss-and-damage fund will prioritise vulnerable and least developed countries. Meanwhile, China is chipping into other channels and platforms to help other countries cope with climate change, like the south-south cooperation fund and Africa climate summit.” Xie echoed this argument at a press conference on 9 December, saying that China “has been carrying out south-south cooperation” over the past 10 years to help other countries build capacity. (Recent analysis for Carbon Brief also underscores this point.)
Pledge to update 2030 and 2035 targets in 2025
NEW NDC: Early on in the COP28 negotiations, Xie announced that China would release a new nationally determined contribution (NDC) that includes targets for both 2035 and 2030, the year before which China has pledged to peak its carbon emissions. “The Chinese government also attaches great importance to this matter,” Xie said.
REASONING? Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, attributes two possible motivations to the announcement: “One is ‘don’t ask us again, there won’t be anything new, wait until 2025’. That’s my interpretation. The other is ‘2030 isn’t entirely fixed, we could still enhance the ambitiousness of the 2030 target’.”
PEAKING TIMELINE: Analysis in Carbon Brief shows that China carbon emissions may enter a “structural decline” as early as next year. An early peak could then affect the level of ambition for the 2030 and 2035 targets. Xie also said at the 9 December press conference that “China has moved from dual control of energy to dual control of carbon emissions, which is a strategic shift”. He added: “If this shift is realised by 2025, China will then determine what year we will reach peak carbon and what the absolute amount of peak carbon will be. But this will certainly not [be] 2030, it will be before 2030.”
Impact of Sunnylands
SETTING THE TONE: The Sunnylands statement – itself a positive signal of thawing US-China relations – set “necessary, but insufficient, conditions for success at COP28”, Li previously told Carbon Brief. The statement itself significantly influenced the final outcome. Key language from the document featured in the final global stocktake text, with US climate envoy John Kerry attributing the success of the methane summit (see below) to “the meeting we had in Sunnylands” in his remarks at the event.
RENEWABLES CENTRED: The Sunnylands statement included a call for the US and China to “pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030…so as to accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation”. Nevertheless, China did not sign up to an official pledge to triple renewable energy and double energy efficiency. Prof Zou Ji, president of the Energy Foundation China, attributes this to an issue of measurement. He says to Carbon Brief: “ [It has not been clarified which] year should be the base year – should it be 2020 [or] 2022? This might seem technical, but, in the past two years, development of renewables – both globally, but particularly in China – has been greatly boosted. So using different [base years] could be very significant.” Wang says he believes that China’s unwillingness to sign was “due to a line on acknowledging the need to phase out unabated fossil fuels”, which was not acceptable to the country. By contrast, Professor Pan Jiahua, vice-chair of the national expert committee on climate change, member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of its Research Center for Sustainable Development plus director of Beijing University of Technology’s Institute of Eco-Civilization Studies, tells Carbon Brief that tripling renewable energy was “not enough” and that countries should be more ambitious.
GOOD VIBES: In the early days of COP28, Chinese state media published several articles highlighting the importance of cooperation with the US. The two countries were often reported to be having hour-long meetings and, in the final days of COP28, rumours circulated that a US-China joint statement was imminent.
WHAT NEXT? Kerry also said at the methane summit that the friendship between him and Xie “was the reason we could work together in Paris, in Glasgow and now in Dubai”. With Xie likely to now be replaced by Liu Zhenmin, there is an important open question about whether Liu will be able to maintain this positive dynamic. (Liu and veteran US negotiator Susan Biniaz were seen together on multiple occasions, while Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s special representative for international climate policy and former Greenpeace co-leader, told the audience that they had held discussions on Germany’s net-zero transition.) And, despite his and Kerry’s respective ages – Xie is 74 and Kerry just turned 80 – Xie said at the 9 December press conference: “We will not leave this field, we will still do our best to promote progress in this field.”
Global stocktake to boost China’s renewables drive
PHASEDOWN NOT PHASEOUT: The final draft of the global stocktake did not refer to a “fossil fuel phase-out”, instead calling for “tripling renewable energy capacity”, “accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power”, using “abatement and removal technologies…particularly in hard-to-abate sectors”, while transitioning away from fossil fuels in a “just, orderly and equitable manner”. All of which aligns with China’s policy priorities.
COMPROMISE: The document was a “compromise text”, Li explains, with the overall language on coal being “very modest”. Pan characterises it in comments to Carbon Brief as “based on a consensus that actions must be taken in line with the 1.5C target”. He argues that the outcome showed that a “negotiated accord…[is] not a solution” and, instead, the global stocktake should shift focus from “restricting” fossil fuels to “accelerating zero-carbon industries”. Meanwhile, Yuan says in a statement the text “will undoubtedly further boost China’s already booming renewable energy sector, accelerate the substitution of coal power and achieve the country’s target of peaking emissions”. However, she adds: “The final text lacks clear and effective implementation pathways.”
TRADE SPATS: China also suggested in its initial submission to the UNFCCC that language be included on “rising unilateralism, protectionism and anti-globalism”. However, the final text saw this watered down to “measures taken to combat climate change, including unilateral ones, should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade”. Li points out that “this is actually stronger” than language in the Sunnylands statement, which the Chinese delegation “should be happy about”. The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) seems to have faded from the text. “I think the consensus is that CBAM is to be discussed at the World Trade Organisation, not at the UN,” Yan Qin, carbon analyst at the London Stock Exchange Group, tells Carbon Brief.
US and China trumpet methane cooperation
ON THE AGENDA: On 2 December, Carbon Brief attended the summit on methane and non-CO2 greenhouse gases, co-hosted by China, the US and UAE. The summit was intended as a strong political signal of US-China cooperation and the importance they both now place on reducing methane emissions. In his remarks at the event, Kerry emphasised the countries’ progress in driving the conversation, noting that methane “was not even talked about in Paris”.
FIRST STEPS: Xie described the summit as an “important step”. However, he argued, China has a “poor foundation” for regulating methane, adding: “We need concrete measures, we need capital support and we also need a feasible technical pathway on how we can join hands to tackle climate change.”
LACK OF TARGETS: As with China’s domestic methane emissions action plan, however, the methane summit did not see any concrete targets for reducing methane. “I hope that we can maintain the momentum,” Li tells Carbon Brief, because, “of [all the] topics they could choose, they chose methane”. It would be frustrating if this level of momentum “still can’t move the ball”, he adds.
Quoted at COP28
FRAMING COP28 BACK HOME: Li Shuo: “We need to recognise the domestic politics…Try to imagine a fistfight at the beginning of COP28. If you’re a general Chinese reader and you see that on the news…Is that helpful for the Chinese leadership?…So I think it’s pretty smart that COP28 had a smooth start [with the operationalisation of the loss-and-damage fund].”
TRADE DISPUTES: Yuan Ying: “We need open, inclusive and collaborative supply chains for renewable energy, then we can work collectively to achieve the targets of tripling renewable energy.”
METHANE EMISSIONS: Prof Alex Wang: “China could target a certain subsection of local leaders, put a lot of pressure on them to get rid of methane and then in two years declare a big success on the international stage…I heard one person mention that [efforts] could be framed in terms of worker safety…[which is] a real black mark in Chinese governance.”
CLIMATE, NATURE AND PEOPLE: Lu Lunyan, WWF China CEO, tells Carbon Brief in a statement: “Protecting nature and modifying agro-food systems is an essential part of effective climate action, but it is unfortunate that countries have failed to adopt the IPCC’s recommendation to include the protection of 30-50% of all ecosystems in the text”.
Read Carbon Brief’s in-depth summary of COP28’s key outcomes of COP28. And Anika Patel, Carbon Brief’s China analyst, will be participating in Carbon Brief’s COP28 webinar tomorrow, 15 December, at 3pm (UK time). Sign up is free.
Watch, read, listen
CONSEQUENTIAL RELATIONSHIPS: With Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua set to retire after COP28, Foreign Policy looked back on how he and US climate envoy John Kerry forged a bond “over decades of [climate] negotiations”.
DUBAI FIRESIDE: The Wall Street Journal interviewed John Kerry on China’s climate policy and his experience working with Xie Zhenhua.
DECIPHERING COP28: Carbon Brief’s China analyst (and author of this newsletter) Anika Patel spoke on the China-Global South Podcast to break down China’s positions at COP28.
TOP 10: In China Energy Net, Kevin Tu, managing director of Agora Energy Transition China, highlighted 10 issues he was watching out for at COP28.
New science
Rapid attribution of the record-breaking heatwave event in north China in June 2023 and future risks
Environmental Research Letters
The record-breaking heatwave that hit North China over 22-24 June 2023 – in which Beijing reached or exceeded temperatures of 40C for three consecutive days for the first time – was made around 1C hotter due to human-caused climate change, according to a new study. The authors carried out a “rapid attribution study” to assess the role of climate change on the event. They find that by the end of the century, in an intermediate emissions scenario, 2023-like heatwave events in North China could be 5.5 times more likely and 2.9C hotter than those under a 2023 climate. They add that, “even if carbon neutrality is achieved”, 2023-like events could occur at least 1.6 times throughout the remainder of the century and be 0.5C hotter.
Electrifying industrial heating in China
Global Efficiency Intelligence
“Plastic recycling, steel reheating processes, steel production and the ammonia industry are the top four industries in terms of CO2 emissions reduction potential from electrification,” according to a new report. The report “identifies specific processes that could be electrified in the near term with commercially available technologies and analyses the expected changes in energy use, CO2 emissions and energy costs”. The authors recommend “integrating electrification in industrial planning and decision-making establishing industry-specific electrification roadmaps”.
Deploying green hydrogen to decarbonise China’s coal chemical sector
Nature Communications
New research finds that China’s coal chemical production resulted in around 1.1 gigaton CO2 equivalent (GtCO2eq) in 2020 – equal to 9% of national emissions. The authors estimate that emissions from the sector could rise to 1.3 GtCO2eq by 2030, but add that around half of these emissions could be reduced using “solar or wind power-based electrolytic hydrogen and oxygen” to replace coal-based hydrogen and air separation-based oxygen. The paper suggests that the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Xinjiang would be “well suited for pilot policies to advance demonstration projects”.
China Briefing is compiled by Anika Patel and edited by Wanyuan Song and Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org.
The post China Briefing 14 December: COP28 special edition appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Twice as many animals died due to heat stress en route to slaughterhouses during the UK’s record-hot summer in 2025 compared to 2024, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
Government figures showed that nearly 6,600 animals – mostly chickens – died in transport as a result of the sweltering summer heat in England and Wales from June to August 2025.
This compared to 3,100 in summer 2024 and no official cases in summer 2023.
These figures were still below the more than 18,500 deaths recorded in the summer of 2022 when UK temperatures hit 40C for the first time, as previously reported by Carbon Brief.
The deaths are a “horrifying reminder of what happens when animals are treated as cargo”, said an animal-rights group spokesperson.
Detailed descriptions included in the data on the deaths highlighted thousands of animals dying amid heat stress, high humidity levels and long journeys.
Thousands of animals also died due to cold, wintry conditions, with more than 13,000 deaths recorded between December 2024 and February 2025 – almost double the previous winter.
Heat deaths
Carbon Brief has analysed recent years of “dead on arrival” data focused on livestock that died due to heat or cold stress en route to slaughterhouses.
The data was obtained through the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is responsible for the compliance of slaughterhouses in England and Wales.
At least 1m chickens die in the UK each year while being transported to slaughterhouses due to suffocation, poor transport procedures and other issues, reported the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2018 .
Pigs, cows, sheep and other animals also die in this way in smaller numbers.
The new data showed that 6,595 animals died due to heat stress en route to abattoirs between June and August 2025, which was the warmest summer on record in the UK.
According to the Met Office, human-caused climate change made this summer heat 70 times more likely to occur.
Carbon Brief requested non-publicly accessible details of “dead on arrival cases” that were categorised as “suspected heat/cold stress”.
Each incident contained a detailed description written by a vet with supporting evidence about the condition of the animals, the transport conditions and the suspected cause of death. These are filed to the FSA.
The information showed that certain individual days had particularly high death tolls. Almost 1,000 chickens died in a number of incidents during a heatwave on 11 July 2025. Some chickens showed visible signs of heat stress, such as panting and immobility, the reports said.
On 12 August, amid more high temperatures, 2,154 chickens died in heat-stress incidents.
Body temperatures of some of the chickens that died on this day were as high as 46C.
A chicken will die if its body temperature exceeds 45C and it should ideally stay as close to 41C as possible, according to a 2005 document from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).
The table below shows the total number of heat- and cold-related deaths of livestock in recent years, based on the data obtained through FOI.
The “dead on arrival” information covered every summer and winter since 2023, alongside the summer of 2022.
The figures were likely an underestimate of the total number of livestock deaths due to high or low temperatures, as they only included deaths with “suspected cold/heat stress” as a listed category.
However, the incident descriptions in many other deaths mentioned high and low temperatures as contributing factors, despite the ultimate cause of death not being labelled as such. These were not included in Carbon Brief’s tally.
The figures covered deaths in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not record the cause of deaths en route to slaughterhouses, so it is not possible to single out the cases linked to high or low temperatures.
Preventing deaths
These livestock deaths are a “horrifying reminder of what happens when animals are treated as cargo”, says Alex Harman, campaigns manager at animal rights group Animal Aid. He tells Carbon Brief:
“These 6,600 individuals [in summer 2025] did not just die, they suffered prolonged, agonising heat exhaustion inside metal containers – anyone experiencing the UK’s heatwave this week will be able to empathise.”
Climate change is “simply amplifying the violence already built into animal farming”, he says, adding that the only “compassionate, logical” solution is to “stop viewing animals as products and urgently transition to a plant-based food system”.
Pigs and chickens cannot sweat and face difficulties cooling down on very hot days.
Cramped or long journeys can exacerbate this, combined with high humidity levels, sometimes upwards of 80%, the livestock data showed.
Abigail Penny, the executive director of Animal Equality UK, tells Carbon Brief that “these same scenes of extreme animal suffering play out every summer and, if nothing is done, it’s only going to get worse”.
Workers transporting animals during extreme weather conditions are expected to put in place measures to protect them, according to UK government guidance.
These measures can include ensuring water and ventilation systems function properly on vehicles, avoiding travel during the hottest or coldest parts of the day and recognising signs of heat and cold stress in animals.
The FSA said that the number of “dead on arrival” incidents caused by cold and heat stress increased by more than 50% between April 2024 and March 2025 compared to the same period the year prior.
The FSA and Defra declined Carbon Brief’s request to comment on the new figures.
Cold deaths
Thousands of animals also die due to cold stress while travelling to slaughterhouses each year. Carbon Brief assessed data for these deaths in the winters of 2023-24 and 2024-25.
At least 13,057 livestock animals died due to cold weather conditions between December 2024 and February 2025. This is more than double the number – 6,981 – that died the previous winter.
On 6 February 2025 alone, 4,056 poultry deaths were reported due to cold weather impacts.
Some livestock also died due to cold conditions in the summer months.
For example, 326 animals died amid cold weather in the summer of 2023. No official heat-related deaths were recorded in that period, but a number of incidents referred to hot-weather conditions or heat stress as contributing factors.
Overall, 2023 was a very warm year in the UK, with soaring temperatures in June and September. At least 3,103 animals died from heat stress in September, the figures also showed.
Conditions were cooler and wetter in July and August, which may have contributed to the absence of heat-stress deaths.
Most cold deaths during warmer months occurred in the early hours of the morning or overnight when temperatures dropped, the FOI data shows.
On 28 August 2025, for example, 134 chickens died due to cold stress. The incident description outlined that the animals were “very wet”, dirty and had few feathers, which can reduce a chicken’s ability to hold warmth.
The animals were transported overnight to a slaughterhouse and “suffered distress and pain” because of the weather and other factors, the description noted.
The post Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK record-hot summer of 2025 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK record-hot summer of 2025
For the first time in the UK, more new electric vehicles (EVs) have been sold over a 12-month period than petrol cars, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
The news comes amid a battle over the future of the UK’s “zero-emissions vehicle” (ZEV) mandate, which the car industry and some unions are pushing to water down.
The mandate sets a rising target for the share of new car sales that must be “zero-emissions vehicles” (ZEVs) each year – primarily “pure” or “battery” EVs that only run on electricity.
The car industry argues that demand for these cars is too low to meet the requirements of the ZEV mandate, despite the fact that the industry has “over-complied” to date.
Carbon Brief’s analysis of the latest data on new UK car sales, shown in the figure below, illustrates that demand for EVs has, in fact, grown consistently – and it has now overtaken demand for petrol cars for the first time.
In the 12 months to May 2026, UK consumers bought 516,490 new BEVs, against only 504,010 new petrol cars.
Note that the analysis is based on figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Figures published by the UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) are based on a slightly different categorisation for hybrid cars.
All hybrids run entirely on petrol or diesel fuel, while also carrying a small battery and an electric motor. ACEA counts these cars separately to petrol and diesel models.
In contrast, the SMMT counts what it calls “mild” hybrids as petrol cars, while listing “full” hybrids – such as Toyota’s Prius – in a separate category.
The ACEA data shows that hybrids are the most popular type of car in the UK, as illustrated in the figure below, but also shows that their sales are relatively stagnant.
Some 56,321 hybrids were sold in May 2026, the most recent month with data from ACEA. This is an increase of 1,181 year-on-year, or just 2%.
In contrast, EV sales grew 34% to reach 43,931, while petrol cars were down 14% to 35,068.
Plug-in hybrids, which can be run on electricity from the grid or from a petrol engine, are also seeing relatively rapid sales growth, up 24% year-on-year in May 2026 to 22,167.
(In the UK, numberplates for “pure” EVs that only run on electricity are marked out by a distinctive green stripe on the left-hand side. These stripes are not used for any type of hybrid.)
The new analysis for the UK follows a similar milestone for the EU, with more BEVs having been sold in the month of December 2025 than petrol cars.
The UK first saw more sales of BEVs than petrol cars in a single month in December 2022, but this pattern has only been repeated on a consistent basis over the past year.
Globally, EV sales grew by 20% in 2025 and accounted for one in every four new cars sold, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The agency said that global EV sales were set to grow by another 15% in 2026.
The post Analysis: UK sales of electric vehicles just overtook petrol cars for the first time appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK sales of electric vehicles just overtook petrol cars for the first time
This could be a big year for the circular economy.
In autumn, the European Commission is due to adopt the Circular Economy Act (CEA), aimed at supporting the EU in its stated aim to become a world leader in circularity by 2030.
There is a clear environmental imperative behind the legislation, but also a geopolitical one. Europe imports the vast majority of all its critical raw materials; for example, 100% of its heavy rare earth metals come from China and 71% of its platinum from South Africa.
The bloc is seeking to reduce its dependency on imports of key commodities, energy and materials, and as a result achieve greater self-sufficiency. Circular products are one route to achieving that.
Circular ambitions
Whether the EU’s aim is achievable, or not, brings into sharp relief the current state of the circular economy. According to the European Environment Agency, in 2024, secondary recovered materials made up 12% of total material use across Europe. This was only 1.5% higher than in 2010.
But, by some estimates, the global circular economy is already worth around $700 billion and could reach several trillion within the next decade. This rate of growth would take considerable support from national governments, starting with something akin to the CEA, which aims to double the EU’s circularity rate to 24% and create a single market for secondary raw materials. The hope is that this will stoke demand from businesses to adopt more circular practices.
Carsten Wachholz, business-policy engagement lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, described the forthcoming act as “a critical opportunity to turn circular solutions from a niche proposition into a mainstream market choice,” adding that by harmonising rules across the single market the EU can allow the circular economy to “scale across borders”.
From there the argument runs that rules created in Europe will be copied in other markets, shaping global supply chains and standards elsewhere. “The EU can work towards shared international ambition, reducing protectionism risks, and unlocking large-scale investment globally,” he added.
Making two ends meet
Raising awareness of what is meant by circularity, and being able to identify and treat circular products correctly, is one of the challenges the sector faces.
The global economy has been built on a simple linear structure where we source a material, create something out of it, sell it on and then throw it away. This process, sometimes called ‘take, make, use, dispose’ is the opposite of the principles of circularity.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines the circular economy as a system where “materials never become waste”. In such a system, products and materials are “kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling and composting”.
Circularity is about the whole life cycle of a product, seeing how it can be used for longer, upgrading when possible, and then potentially using that product to create something else afterwards. The intention with circularity is to increase the use of non-virgin materials, reducing the need to extract more from the ground.
Signify: “We believe resilience is becoming more important to businesses right now”
Thomas Marinelli, head of sustainable innovation and design at Signify, a global lighting company, said: “I once explained it to a child with Lego. You put Lego blocks together and you can pull them apart again and make something new.”
Circular practices also lead to more products – phones, washing machines, lighting – being leased instead of created from scratch. These services cut the need for large upfront investments and reduce environmental impacts.
How business is responding
The next step is to convince businesses it is the right thing to do, from a financial, environmental and product perspective.
“Using products for longer and using less material and energy is a topic of interest in our markets,” added Marinelli, while at the same time acknowledging that part of the challenge is “awareness creation”.
“We need to prove that products made from non-virgin, or bio-circular materials are at least as good. And that a business’s environmental footprint is much lower when you use non-virgin materials,” he said.
Part of the awareness-raising piece is showing that older products can be repaired, refurbished and remanufactured, depending on their condition. Signify takes lighting systems that are up to 10 years old, and makes them new again, saving on material waste and cutting emissions, often at a lower cost than buying a new product.
A growing number of companies are already sold on the benefits of going circular. A recent survey from the World Economic Forum found that out of 491 manufacturing executives, 79% said circularity is crucial to their business, and 95% said it will be important within three years.
Carrefour, the French retail giant, has adopted circular practices in some of its stores as a way of driving down energy costs and cutting carbon emissions. In one of its Belgian stores, the company installed 3D-printed light fixtures made from recycled water bottles. Lighting systems were made from recycled materials that can be fully dismantled and used to make new ones after they reach the end of their natural life.
A separate example comes from Denmark where the area of Tuborg Havn in Copenhagen chose to upgrade its historic street lamps with efficient LEDs instead of replacing them. More than 80 light fixtures were cleaned, upgraded and reinstalled as part of the new initiative, and the new lights will be 3.5 times more efficient than the old ones. The initiative has allowed the harbour to retain its historic character while reducing energy consumption and modernising the area.
Overcoming barriers
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation recently coordinated an open letter to the European Commission – signed by 12 global brands including The LEGO Group, H&M and Philips – calling for lawmakers to support new reforms that address common barriers facing circular products.
These include simplifying EU-wide rules, creating tax incentives and stronger financial support for the burgeoning sector. Current VAT rules, for example, can mean secondhand goods are repeatedly taxed across their lifetime, something the charity is seeking to change.
“Capital is not lacking,” said Wachholz, “but the risk profile of circular economy projects keeps too many ventures stuck at pilot scale rather than reaching industrial deployment.”
The letter calls for the creation of a secondary materials platform to improve price transparency, digital product passports to track material flows, and the creation of new industrial hubs to provide the infrastructure and technology the sector needs in order to scale up.
Those measures, coupled with fossil energy price spikes, will help circular products compete on cost with the extractive economy, experts say. “Using recycled materials or non-virgin alternatives can become competitive in the long run,” said Marinelli, pointing to the volatility in the price of raw materials. “If you look at plastics, when oil is a problem, the price of plastics goes up. But recycled plastic stays at the same level.”
“And it’s not only about materials but production as well. When volumes of recycled materials go up, then the price remains stable or goes down,” he added.
Opportune moment
The current geopolitical environment could serve to support growth in the circular economy. Supply chain constraints caused by the war in Iran have caused commodity prices to skyrocket. This has led many companies – and countries – to seek ways to protect themselves against future shocks.
In that context, new circular policies and products could receive a favourable hearing from businesses looking to build resilience, cut costs and protect nature. A future where circularity is fully embedded across society will need time and support to grow, but may well be on its way.
Adam Wentworth is a freelance journalist based in Brighton, UK
The post Can the circular economy win over big business? appeared first on Climate Home News.
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