A range of businesses from across the city came together to discuss the benefits of a circular economy in relation to business growth and achieving Net Zero targets.
The event, which was held in the Acid Bar on Tuesday 23 May in partnership with Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, proved to be a really impactful and well attended night, where a broad range of representatives from fields of architecture, food and drink, culture, fashion, academia, and more gathered to discuss what can be done to help implement a circular economy throughout industry in Scotland. Amongst the broad range of guests was cook, writer and restaurateur Thomasina Miers, who was delighted at the impact the night had on so many important industry leaders.
These kind of gatherings don’t happen in London – what I mean by that is that of course events like these happen, but you don’t get such a broad sector of leaders from across multiple sectors coalescing and having such animated and purposeful conversations in the same room.
To have senior representation from academia to architecture, the food & drink sector to finance combined with the cultural sector, fashion and transport was super impressive!’
Thomasina Miers.
In a linear economy we design, produce with raw materials, distribute and consume and then incinerate or dump everything to landfill when we are done. Everything from packaging, food, and clothing through to building materials, and smart phones are discarded and it's estimated that around 80% of all materials used in a linear economy is wasted. A circular economy is a real solution to this emerging resource problem, as resources are not discarded, but recovered in a system that is continuous and long-lasting, with the goal of keeping them functioning at their highest potential.
Circular economies are particularly helpful for business who have set net zero targets, and this was a topic of conversation that continuously popped up on the night, with all of the guests sharing their thoughts and ideas on how to help implement the circular economy model in order to their own organisations with their net zero goals. For us here at SWG3, this was incredibly important as we have committed to reducing our emissions to net zero by 2025, and have already made significant progress on this through reducing our operational carbon emissions by 17%, carrying out waste audits, and of course, our pioneering BODYHEAT system. You can find out more about SWG3's net zero goals here.
