The need for economic transformation
The most common economic system, capitalism, is ecologically and socially unsustainable because of its inherent imperatives. Moreover, the prevailing system of production and consumption, industrialism (which has also been prevalent in socialist systems), is also ecologically unsustainable due to its inherent need for continuously expanding markets. Furthermore, many of the technologies on which these systems rely have proven to be seriously harmful to both humans and ecosystems, contributing to the destruction of the very life-support systems on Earth. For these reasons, economic transformation is fundamental for moving towards sustainable economic systems.
In addition to these reasons, several other factors and developments will necessitate governments to play a more significant role in managing and steering national economies. First, reasonably soon, economic growth is likely to end.[1] This may happen regardless of whether governments recognise environmental limits, as these limits will impose themselves directly and indirectly, for instance, through rising costs of fossil fuels, water shortages, growing scarcity of mineral resources, and the deterioration and destruction of agricultural land, among others. The limits and destruction of natural capital inevitably spell the end of growth. This will lead to a severe economic downturn (shrinking and closing of businesses, mass unemployment) and will require an overhaul of (capitalist and industrial) economic systems to avoid social and economic collapse and disintegration. The likelihood of a global financial and economic collapse and crisis due to stagnating economic growth and the resulting social and economic breakdown will require states to redefine and significantly expand their economic functions. When things go drastically wrong, people look to states and governments for protection from potentially life-threatening disruptions.
Second, governments must prepare for and deal with the increasingly frequent disasters and destruction expected with the intensification of global heating. Global warming has already been built into the climate system for hundreds of years at the very least. It will be prolonged and intensified by the (still growing) emissions in the decades ahead, as the goal of global carbon neutrality will not be achieved before 2050 at the earliest. Apart from the need to boost the national capacity to cope with more frequent weather-related disasters, states must prioritise climate adaptation. Many countries may require major infrastructure projects (notably to protect coastal zones) and economic restructuring (including the energy, agricultural, and transport sectors) to strengthen resilience and ensure supply security. This requires a degree of research, planning, coordination, finance, (re-)development, and action that can only be undertaken effectively by states and governments with the political-institutional power to overcome resistance to the so-called uneconomic nature of many of these tasks.
Third, ironically and paradoxically, globalisation, which has significantly increased countries’ exposure to the effects of events and developments worldwide, has made it apparent that national governments must regain and boost their capacity to deal with unpleasant surprises, shocks, and disruptions. This increased vulnerability has been clearly illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic (which will not be the last). But there are also the threats of (potential) disruptions of supply chains in the wake of (natural) disasters, the spread of pests and diseases affecting vital food crops, and wars and political upheavals. Generally, the greater a country’s dependence on exports, imports, and foreign capital, the higher its vulnerability to developments and events in other countries. A high level of economic dependence on some “trading partner(s)” may also compromise a country’s political independence as these “partners” can (and already do) use this economic leverage as a political tool.
For all these reasons, the need for economic transformation is of the highest urgency. Yet, it is also the most daunting and difficult to achieve. Nonetheless, once Sovereign People’s Authorities (SPAs) have been created, the chances of economic transformation are significantly improved, given their supreme political (institutional) power. Yet, questions remain about what exactly SPAs should do to transform the prevailing economic systems. Although I do not claim to have detailed answers, I propose three interrelated principles that can serve as a basis for developing more specific economic institutions and policies to advance towards sustainability and more desirable societies. These principles are: restoring the economic sovereignty of (nation-) states, economic democracy, and sustainable production and consumption.
Restoring economic sovereignty
First, (nation-) states must restore their economic sovereignty because it constitutes the fundamental (power) basis required to steer their economies in a less unsustainable direction. The present global capitalist system is fundamentally and inherently unsustainable, environmentally as well as socially, and will drag the whole of humanity into the abyss if countries do not disengage themselves from this treadmill. Economic globalisation has little to do with the promotion of free trade (the US and the EU have always maintained restrictions to protect their interests), but everything to do with capitalist imperatives related to the need for expanding markets and new capital accumulation (and profit) opportunities. Economic globalisation simply uses countries and their resources as fodder for the insatiable economic growth machine, pulling down all political and social barriers that stand in the way of exploitation at minimal cost, regardless of the social and environmental effects. Given the competitive nature of this system, the highly unequal power between states, and geopolitical realities, there is simply no prospect of capitalism being globally regulated to protect local and global environments, let alone reduce material throughput and halt economic growth. If a country is serious about wanting to protect and restore its environment, it has no other option but to stop allowing environmentally and socially destructive practices on its territory that are presently being justified by economic globalisation.
Doing so requires regaining sovereign power over a country’s economic affairs, notably finance, investments, and trade. It means withdrawing from free trade agreements and reintroducing state control over trans-border capital movements. Why would countries sign up to agreements that primarily benefit small minorities? In most countries, domestic economic production and activity account for most of the GDP, while export revenues account for a much smaller fraction of national income.[2] Even after nearly four decades of economic globalisation and growing trade worldwide, in most countries, the value of exports as a proportion of GDP is considerably less than 50%, especially in high-income countries. By far, most people depend on local production (of goods and services), not on exports, for employment and income. Allowing export-led growth interests to dominate national economic policy is an example of the ‘tail wagging the dog’ phenomenon, benefiting primarily the exporters involved.[3] As Mitchell and Fazi note, exports are more of a cost than a benefit to a nation, as they involve exploiting resources (with the environmental costs thereof) without benefitting most people, while imports represent real benefits.[4] Maintaining domestic economic activity for the local (national) market should be at the forefront of government concern and policy. This does not mean that countries have to become completely self-sufficient. For most countries, complete self-sufficiency would be impossible. However, it is neither necessary nor desirable, as trade can be genuinely sustainable and desirable if controlled and regulated. It is vital to retain national and state capacity to meet the essential needs of populations.
This applies a fortiori to decisions about finance and foreign investments. Currently, decisions in these areas are based on the financial return to the owners and issuers of capital (including global financial TNCs), without much, if any, regard for social and environmental consequences. Moreover, the greater the degree of foreign ownership and dependence on foreign capital (formalised by free-trade agreements), the more citizens of a country lose their capacity to steer their economy toward a sustainable and socially desirable future, effectively losing their economic sovereignty.[5] Given the enormous economic power that comes with control over finance and credit, it is imperative that countries regain that control, for a start by nationalising banks and other financial institutions.[6]
A key element of this sovereignty is the state’s power to issue its own currency. As Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) convincingly argues, governments that issue their own currency cannot default on debt issued in that currency. As modern money is predominantly a matter of (electronic) accounting (entering figures on accounts) and is no longer convertible to gold or any other substance, in principle, there is no limit to how much money governments can create (“print”) to pay for domestically essential activities. This does not mean there are no economic limits to the amount of money governments can issue responsibly. However, these limits are related to the availability of real resources and labour in a country, not to some fictional idea of what level of government debt is sustainable. As long as spare labour (unemployment) and resources are available within a country that can be used productively and sustainably, governments can print as much money as needed to create full employment, pay a living wage to those employed, and produce everything that can be produced domestically and that is considered essential or desirable, such as affordable housing.[7] This also applies to the urgent requirements of environmental adaptation and ecological restoration that can be met by local labour and resources. This crucial element of economic sovereignty enables a country to gradually wean itself from (over-) dependence on, and vulnerability to, blackmail by global capital markets.
While this may sound too good to be true, mainstream economists have difficulty debunking MMT theory, foremost arguing that it would lead to (runaway) inflation. But this argument is implausible as long as government-sponsored economic activity would use spare capacity in a country’s economy. The main reasons why mainstream economists have difficulty accepting the validity of MMT lie in the overwhelming predominance of neoliberal economic thinking and theory taught at universities (even though these have been convincingly debunked by some economists), and the fact that, in many countries, dominant economic institutions have entrenched neoliberal dogma (also legally, like in the form of independent Central or Reserve Banks, and laws or constitutions that mandate limits on government spending or borrowing). Also, to the extent that countries have already become heavily dependent on foreign capital (and incurred high levels of debt in foreign currencies), they are being held captive by international finance capital, which may resort to disciplinary action aimed at governments that do not play by the neoliberal book.
However, governments should not be deterred by such threats and gradually, but steadily, steer towards regaining financial and economic control. Governments can increasingly rely on their own (created) currencies to reduce the need to borrow more from the international capital markets. Moreover, control over capital flows and currency trading can be restored to prevent speculation against the national currency. Banks and other financial institutions must be nationalised to control lending, while private borrowing in foreign currencies should be minimised to diminish financial instability. While such measures may deter foreign investment (which involves foreign companies acquiring local businesses and exploiting local resources to increase their profits), and reduce the amount of foreign capital available for financing major capital projects, this is not necessarily a bad thing. In many countries, moving towards sustainability is likely to require reducing material throughput (material resource use), and all countries need to become much more discriminating in determining what kind of development is feasible and desirable.
Economic democracy
The second principle that should guide economic transformation efforts is economic democracy. Where restoring economic sovereignty is needed for a country to regain control over its economy, economic democracy is required to ensure that the people, rather than national economic elites, have control over the decisions that affect them most. The notion of economic democracy used here is broader than that of workers’ democracy or industrial democracy, which refers to the democratisation of the workplace and how businesses should be run.[8] Here, economic democracy means subjecting all economic decisions that significantly impact the lives of people in a country to democratic decision-making. This applies to decision-making in the workplace or at the management level of individual companies and governments’ macroeconomic policies and decisions. For too long, economics and government economic decision-making have been kept in the hands of economists and economic policy experts who treat the economy as too important (or too complex) to be given over to democracy. Economic democracy is a precondition for ensuring that economic decision-making serves the needs and goals determined by society, rather than the market, which, in practice, means the most powerful economic interests, such as financial capital and transnational corporations (TNCs).
At its most basic level, economics is about allocating and using natural resources to meet human and societal needs. Inevitably, this involves impacting the biophysical environment. It also implies deciding what and how things are produced, how much, and for whom. As people, with the odd exception, produce things collectively, economics is a social, political, and environmental affair. This fundamental nature of economics is obscured in neoclassical and neoliberal (free market) political-economic regimes, which have disembedded economic theory and decision-making from social and environmental realities, resulting in significant social and environmental costs. Under these regimes, economic power has been left largely unbridled and free to accumulate. Moving towards a sustainable economic system requires re-embedding economic institutions into environmental and societal systems (realities) and acknowledging the political nature of economic decisions.
It will be evident that the approach advocated here will involve and require planning. However, economic planning does not necessarily imply the adoption of the type of authoritarian, top-down system that was practised in the former Soviet Union and that was of debatable effectiveness.[9] It has been argued that this type of planning may be much more workable now, given the availability of high-powered computers and sophisticated algorithms that did not exist during the Soviet era.[10] However, to be responsive to societal needs, economic planning will need to be democratic and based on public input and deliberation on what is considered important or essential. This applies, for instance, to decision-making on what are considered to be essential public and private goods and services, such as housing, health care, education, social care, public playgrounds, libraries, and community facilities, as well as on how energy, transport, and recreational needs, among other, are best provided for. Decisions on investments and the production and/or import of private goods could perhaps be built upon the sophisticated communication and computer technologies already being used by big-tech companies for top-down, manipulative commercial purposes, which could be made transparent and controlled democratically. However, as production and consumption are not simply a matter of aggregating and meeting individual consumer preferences and can have significant social consequences, decisions must be guided by other criteria, including what society deems (most) important for the common good.
Apart from steering the production of goods and services into socially desired directions, democratic planning would make it possible to eliminate most of the wastefulness that accompanies the allegedly efficient market-based system, including the billions of dollars spent on advertising and marketing and the inevitable boom and bust (over- and underproduction) cycles inherent to capitalism. Moreover, it would eliminate the practice of built-in obsolescence and the deliberate neglect of environmental (durability) considerations in the design of products, not to speak of the vast amount of waste and pollution, with all their adverse environmental and human health effects, that are inherent to both competitive market-based and capitalist-monopolistic economies dependent on capital accumulation and ever-larger markets.
Economic democracy also implies that society has the right to collectively decide an acceptable or desirable distribution of income and wealth, if only for social justice and equity. In many countries, income and wealth inequality has dramatically increased with the rise of neoliberalism as the dominant political-economic ideology since the 1980s and the decline of social democracy in the West. There is no need to elaborate on this fact, as it has been well-documented and extensively discussed in both academic and general literature.[11] However, it would be fair to say that inequality, or rather poverty, has evolved from an issue perceived as relevant to so-called developing countries into a problem that also affects rich countries. While philosophers debate the grounds on which inequality may be justifiable,[12] it has become a widespread public concern, further undermining the legitimacy and support for liberal democracies. As Daly notes, in a steady-state economy (and one should add even more in a degrowth economy), it is a “logical necessity” to set a maximum limit on wealth (and consequently also income). Without economic growth, a socially agreed distribution of income and wealth becomes more important to keep inequality “within some tolerable levels”.[13]
That large inequality in wealth and income is incompatible with democracy is not a novel idea [14] and has been amply backed up by research on the political influence of the very rich,[15] and by investigative journalists who, assisted by data leaks, have revealed that the line between politics and wealth is very thin and often crossed, even if not strictly illegally.[16] Economic power is arguably the most important source of power, as, in high concentrations, it enables its holders to use it to acquire cognitive power (for instance, the power of the media) and political-institutional power (such as buying political candidates or being elected to political office). Protecting or enhancing democracy requires abolishing sharp inequalities in wealth and income and moving towards a much more egalitarian society. Economic democracy implies that societies can impose absolute limits on income and wealth to prevent the accumulation and concentration of economic power to levels considered dangerous to democracy.
While governments can adopt (and have adopted in the past) a wide range of well-known measures to limit and reduce these inequalities (including progressive income taxes, wealth tax, and inheritance taxes), these need to be high enough to make a significant difference. In this respect, placing a maximum on income and wealth would be more effective, an idea that has been gaining support.[17] However, even such measures would still not address the roots of the problem. Inequality of income and wealth originates from the economic institutions and mechanisms that enable and have been designed for accumulation. In a capitalist system, the power to make decisions over the distribution of the wealth generated by economic activity lies with those who own and/or control capital. Not surprisingly, top managers of companies (often also major shareholders) grant themselves obscene salaries and bonuses because they can. Capitalism is about making money from money, and in its purest form, it does that even without producing anything.[18] With the deregulation of finance, it became even easier for financial capital to make money from money and for its managers to grant themselves extraordinary incomes and accumulate wealth without precedent. To address the source of income and wealth inequality, the economic institutional power that generates it must be addressed and brought under control.
Deconcentrating and equitably sharing economic institutional power entails examining alternative economic ownership and/or control structures and drawing connections with the principle of economic democracy discussed above. It could mean placing ownership and control in the hands of all workers (the concept of workers’ or industrial democracy), cooperative businesses, or community-owned and state-owned enterprises.[19] In all cases, this should involve introducing economic decision-making institutions that enable collective control over important decisions (including investments, salaries, and the distribution of revenues).
Sustainable production and consumption
The third interrelated principle is sustainable production and consumption. For reasons discussed on the industrial production page, the prevailing production systems are incompatible with long-term sustainability on all three dimensions (ecological, resource and human). While the dominant approach to developing green production systems is heavily oriented towards technological innovation (notably to increase resource efficiency), this approach is likely to generate new, unforeseen, and unintended effects. Developing genuinely sustainable production and consumption systems requires (re-) designing production methods based on ecological, resource and human (health; qualitative) criteria (limits and desiderata). Rather than doing so at a general level, this implies design based on specific and different social and environmental contexts, thus from the ground up. Embedding production within the ecological context requires an inventory of a country’s environmental capacity based on local/regional assessments.
These assessments may indicate the scope for regional specialisation based on sustainability criteria and a need to reduce excess production and consumption derived from particular areas and ecosystems. If the notions of industrial ecology or circular economy are to be implemented meaningfully, they will require the (re-) design of a country’s production system as a whole, from “cradle to cradle”, from the extraction of raw materials through all stages of production, the use of energy, distribution and consumption (or lease), to the re-integration of end of life materials into environmental cycles.[20] Constructing a circular economy requires a nation- and economy-wide approach. No government has yet adopted such an approach, apart from expressing interest in, or even a commitment to, the concept of a circular economy.[21]
While the specifics and details of economic transformation will need to be developed and determined by democratically constituted economic institutions created by Sovereign People’s Authorities (SPAs), these three principles indicate the nature and scale of the tasks ahead. Although some governments and businesses have made small, mostly token moves towards greening production and consumption, they do not want to hear about economic sovereignty, democracy, or abolishing capitalism and industrialism. Only if the supreme power in a country is assigned to a Sovereign People’s Authority is there a chance that such daunting tasks will be undertaken, as the citizens recognise the fundamental unsustainability of the prevailing economic systems and the importance of replacing these with (much more) sustainable and socially and politically desirable systems.
References
[1] Heinberg, Richard (2011, e-book ed.), The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality. New York: New Society Publishers.
[2] For the United States, exports account for 11.9% of GDP, 16.1% for Japan, 19.8% for China, 21.3% for Australia, 25.8% for New Zealand, 30.5% for the United Kingdom, 30.9% for France, and 47.2% for Germany. Singapore, Hong Kong, and Luxembourg (countries with very small resource bases of their own) are at the top end with 177.3%, 188.8%, and 230%, respectively. I do not include import figures here, as these do not constitute domestically generated production and income. Wikipedia (2021), List of Countries by Trade-to-GDP Ratio, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_trade-to-GDP_ratio (Accessed: 8 September 2021).
[3] Here, it is perhaps helpful to remind ourselves that exports are imperative for big corporations that have outgrown their national market and need bigger markets and new opportunities to invest their profits. It is these that propagate the export-led growth myth and that push governments to pursue free trade agreements.
[4] Mitchell, William and Thomas Fazi, Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World. London: Pluto Press, 203-205. Whether imports are essential or desirable (in terms of benefits) is not a given, but is open to debate.
[5] These points have also been convincingly made by Hines, who makes a case for “Progressive Protectionism”. Hines, Colin (2017, ebook ed.), Progressive Protectionism: Taking Back Control. Park House Press. And by Mitchell, William and Thomas Fazi, Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World.
[6] Mitchell, William and Thomas Fazi, Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World, 255-258. This does not exclude the creation of collectively owned (community-owned) financial institutions that do not operate on a profit basis. See Mellor, Mary (2005), “The Politics of Money and Credit as a Route to Ecological Sustainability and Economic Democracy”, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, Vol . 16, No.2, 45-60; Hutchinson, Frances, et al., The Politics of Money. Towards Sustainability and Economic Democracy. London: Pluto Press.
[7] Kelton, Stephanie (2020), The Deficit Myth. Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. New York: Public Affairs Information Service; Mitchell, William, et al. (2016), Modern Monetary Theory and Practice: An Introductory Text. Callaghan, NSW, Australia: Centre for Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE).
[8] For a discussion of views on economic democracy, see the page on Democratic Socialism.
[9] The dominant view in Western circles is, of course, that this planning system failed abysmally. However, this is debatable considering the standard of living that the Soviet Union achieved, including the provision of public services in health and education, as well as guaranteed employment and housing, with no beggars on the streets and no food banks, which have become common “achievements” of neoliberal capitalism. Cuba also adopted Soviet-style planning and has often been praised for its achievements, especially in comparison with many other countries in Latin America (or even the United States). This is not to idealise traditional socialist planning—it indeed failed on the environmental front—but neither should capitalist propaganda cloud our judgement about planning.
[10] Cockshott, W. Paul and Allin Cottrell (1993; 2010), Towards a New Socialism. Nottingham, England: Spokesman.
[11] A publication that has had a catalytic effect on the rise of inequality as an issue on the international agenda is Piketty, Thomas (2014), Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press. See also Alvaredo, Facundo, et al. (2018), World Inequality Report. World Inequality Lab, https://wir2018.wid.world/ (Accessed: 2 January 2018); Krugman, Paul R. (2009), The Conscience of a Liberal. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. But this rise in attention has been amplified by the considerable publicity given to the extreme discrepancies in wealth and income (and to the “1%”) in the media, leading to many calls for government action to address the issue. See, for instance, Oxfam International (2017), An Economy for the 99% Oxford, UK: Oxfam GB, https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/economy-99 (Accessed: 6 December 2018); Savage, Michael (2018), “Richest 1% on Target to Own Two-Thirds of All Wealth by 2030”, The Guardian, 7 April 2018; Partington, Richard (2018), “Pay Rising Faster for Top 1% of Earners in Richest Countries, Says Report”, The Guardian, 4 July.
[12] Rawls, John (1999), A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press; Pogge, Thomas W. (2002), “Moral Universalism and Global Economic Justice”, Politics Philosophy Economics, Vol . 1, No.1, 29-58; Miller, David (1999), “Justice and Global Inequality”, in A. Hurrell and N. Woods (eds.), Inequality, Globalization, and World Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 187-210.
[13] Daly, Herman E., “The Steady-State Economy: Toward a Political Economy of Biophysical Equilibrium and Moral Growth”, in Daly, H. W. (ed.) Toward a Steady-State Economy. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 168-170. It is worth noting that although Daly builds his case on moral grounds, he does not reject capitalism (private ownership of the means of production). Rather, giving workers a share in ownership helps to maintain its legitimacy. Placing a maximum on income and wealth would prevent extreme (and immoral) inequality and remove many of the incentives for monopoly. Daly admits that a limit on corporate size would also be needed.
[14] Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Economic Democracy. Berkeley: University of California Press; Keane, John, The Life and Death of Democracy. London: Simon & Schuster.
[15] Gilens, Martin and Benjamin I. Page (2014), “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens “, Perspectives on Politics Vol . 12, No.3, pp.564-581; Winters, Jeffrey A., Oligarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; MacLean, Nancy, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. Scribe Publications; Mayer, Jane, Dark Money. The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. New York: Doubleday.
[16] Guardian investigations team (2021), “Pandora Papers: Biggest Ever Leak of Offshore Data Exposes Financial Secrets of Rich and Powerful”, The Guardian, 3 October 2021; Pegg, David (2020), “Leak Reveals $2tn of Possibly Corrupt US Financial Activity”, The Guardian, 20 September; Garside, Juliette, et al. (2016), “The Panama Papers: How the World’s Rich and Famous Hide Their Money Offshore”, The Guardian, 3 April 2016.
[17] Pizzigati, Sam (2018), The Case for a Maximum Wage. Cambridge: Polity Press; Robeyns, Ingrid (2019), “What, If Anything, Is Wrong with Extreme Wealth?”, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Vol.20, No.3, 251-266; Monbiot, George (2019), “For the Sake of Life on Earth, We Must Put a Limit on Wealth”, The Guardian, 19 September; Robeyns, Ingrid (2024), Limitarianism. The Case against Extreme Wealth. New York: Astra House.
[18] As expressed in the formulae used by Marx: M-C-M (money turned into capital to make more money), and M-M (money turned into more money via financial transactions: banking, insurance, speculation, and all kinds of complex and opaque instruments, including derivatives). See Tooze, J. Adam, Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World. United Kingdom: Penguin Random House. Also, Christophers, Brett, Rentier Capitalism. Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It? London and New York: Verso.
[19] For a discussion of some alternatives, see Mellor, Mary (2012), “Co-Operative Principles for a Green Economy”, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol . 23, No.2, 108-110; New Economics Foundation (2020), Change the Rules. New Rules for the Economy. New Economics Foundation. (Accessed: 20 August 2020); Moye, A Melissa (1993), “Mondragón: Adapting Co-Operative Structures to Meet the Demands of a Changing Environment”, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol . 14, No.2, 251-276.
[20] For interesting ideas on what may be technically possible, see Benyus, Janine M. (1997), Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: Morrow; McDonough, William and Michael Braungart (2002, 1st ed.), Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. New York: North Point Press; Ausubel, Ken and J. P. Harpignies (2004), Nature’s Operating Instructions: The True Biotechnologies. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
[21] For the idea of creating circular economies and an exploration of applications, see EMAF (Ellen MacArthur Foundation), Stiftungsfonds für Umweltökonomie und Nachhaltigkeit (SUN) of the Deutsche Post Foundation, and the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment (2015), Growth Within: A Circular Economy Vision for a Competitive Europe. (Accessed: 8 July 2021); European Environment Agency (2019), Paving the Way for a Circular Economy: Insights on Status and Potentials. Luxembourg: Publications of the European Union (Accessed: 27 January 2020); European Commission (2020), A New Circular Economy Action Plan for a Cleaner and More Competitive Europe. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Brussels: European Commission; Gallaud, Delphine and Blandine Laperche (2016), Circular Economy, Industrial Economy and Short Supply Chain. London: Wiley; McDowall, Will, et al. (2017), “Circular Economy Policies in China and Europe”, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Vol . 21, No.2, 651-661. China has adopted the concept of a circular economy, aiming for dual goals of environmental sustainability and economic growth.