The Circularity Gap Report 2022: Five years of analysis and insights

Five years of Circularity Gap Reports have revealed how linear the world is—we only cycle 8.6% of what we use, which leaves a massive Circularity Gap of over 90%. And in only two years, global circularity wilted from 9.1% in 2018 to 8.6% in 2020. As a result, the wrong kinds of records are getting broken and set. In 2019, for instance, as well as the world having warmed 1.1-degrees since the pre-industrial era, society also breached boundaries for extraction, consuming 100 billion tonnes of res…

Five years of Circularity Gap Reports have revealed how linear the world is—we only cycle 8.6% of what we use, which leaves a massive Circularity Gap of over 90%. And in only two years, global circularity wilted from 9.1% in 2018 to 8.6% in 2020. As a result, the wrong kinds of records are getting broken and set. In 2019, for instance, as well as the world having warmed 1.1-degrees since the pre-industrial era, society also breached boundaries for extraction, consuming 100 billion tonnes of resources. Our
analysis connected this resource use to key societal needs and wants—how we eat, move and live—so that we could quantitatively track trends in usage and waste. This allows us to develop people-centred, resource-smart and climate-safe roadmaps for change.

The world may feel like it’s on fire, but here’s the solution: enacted globally, a circular economy can help to close the Emissions Gap. This Circularity Gap Report 2022 will demonstrate—based on five years of analysis and learnings—how the circular economy is a means to cut resource-use and emissions and boost equitable societies. With our roadmap of 21 circular solutions, businesses, cities and nations can reduce resource extraction and use by 28%, therefore cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 39% and getting the world on a 1.5-degree pathway. Tailoring the roadmap to different localities and sectors can guide all key actors in the course corrections we so desperately need. Whilst our roadmap is a powerful addition to the clean-energy transition already underway, we won’t achieve the scale of change needed unless we also drop business as usual behaviours and overcome linear thinking. In this iteration of the Report, we investigate these obstacles, plus showcase real-world examples of circular activity.