The defining trend of the 2020’s will be the the mainstreaming of the ‘circular economy.’
Last year, humanity consumed 1.75 Earths worth of resources.
That’s a fucking lot.
Since 1971, humanity’s demand for ecological resources has exceeded what Earth can regenerate in each year.
The day that marks the ‘overshoot’ is known as ‘Earth Overshoot Day.’
This year, Earth Overshoot Day fell on 29th July, and is trending earlier each year.
Let’s talk about the potential biggest opportunity lying in wait for an entrepreneur.
Problem
Every single business on the planet has a ‘linear business model’ -based on the ‘take-make-dispose’ production model - also known as a ‘caterpillar model’ -
This has exceeded Earth’s capacity to sustain us and has led to a widespread calling for a transition to a ‘closed-loop’ system - or butterfly model - minimising the creation of waste, pollution and carbon emissions.
Solution?
Founders: - Out of this trend will emerge a technological ‘Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) As-A-Service’ platform/ecosystem that will become as ubiquitous as the ERP/CRM. This platform will remove inertia for businesses looking to transition to a circular model.
With over $4.5 trillion USD of value to be unlocked by 2030, this is a viable opportunity for the hungry entrepreneur.
VCs: We need to approach the circular economy as an industry-agnostic trend, focusing on four key areas:
Companies that are building technologies that inform ESG risk mitigation for capital deployment (eg. C2Zero, Emmi)
Companies redesigning inputs into system (Hempitecture, Traceless)
Companies building tech that streamlines adoption of circular processes (Sendle, Goterra)
Companies that are building tech to enable waste to loop back into the system (Greencaffeen, ZeroCo)
In the words of Marc Andreessen, ‘It’s time to build.’
Let’s go.