The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is an independent charity with the aim of inspiring a generation to re-think, re-design & build a positive future through the vision of a circular economy
Our key objectives:
To provide a coherent framework for change - the vision of a circular economy
To inspire a generation to develop the knowledge and perspective to build a restorative future
To engage with industry and showcase what is possible and challenge the status quo
Who we work with: There are three main constituencies:
1) Educators, students and other key stakeholders
Schools and FE colleges (14-19) and Higher Education. Our focus is primarily design and technology, business, economics and enterprise; the work related curriculum and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), but also other subjects that have a direct link to business sustainability and promoting creative and critical thinking skills.
2) Businesses in sectors key to the UK's future ability to operate sustainably.
3) Media and creative communications individuals and organi
Why we think this is important:
We share widespread concern that the end of the era of cheap fossil fuels and key materials, coupled with rising population and anxieties around water resources, food production and harmful wastes, demonstrates the need for rethinking our model of production and consumption, not merely patching it up. We also share an optimism that this rethinking will bring a better quality of life and increased opportunities as it can potentially restore natural and social capital.
Explore our Energy and Resources section for a factual view of the current state of affairs.
Changing perspectives:
The Foundation puts much emphasis on "systems thinking", the understanding of a phenomenon within the context of a larger whole; to understand things systemically literally means to put them into a context, to establish the nature of their relationships.
Like The Open University in their primer on systems thinking, the Foundation agrees that it "is the key literacy that we need for the future."
We offer a contemporary framework for thinking based on taking insights from living systems and applying them to energy and resource flows in the economy to produce restorative cycles of development.
The Foundation shares and promotes discussion and debate around a simple and coherent approach which brings together contemporary understanding in science (non-linear systems), participatory teaching and learning and the development of a circular or closed loop economy based on insights from living systems.