allez plus loin
Point of view: Treat emissions as resources, By Braungart & Mulhall
A wave of recent developments has rendered emissions trading schemes and EU carbon emissions taxes impotent.
Walter Stahel on the Performance Economy
Professor Walter Stahel provides an insight into the opportunities posed by shifting towards a ‘performance economy’.
Recycling and the circular economy
One of the biggest confusions around a circular economy framework is that sparked by the word ‘recycling’. Surely a circular economy just means mor...
Towns in transition: from Grytviken to Detroit
“There were ships filling the harbours, some of which still line the shores today, and spare propellers and patterns for producing engine parts (.....
Point of view: Walter Stahel on taxation
"Taxing renewable resources is against the logic of a sustainable society. Human labour – work - is a renewable resource which has not been recogni...
An evening with Alex Steffen and Ellen MacArthur at the RGS.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the University of Bradford are happy to welcome Alex Steffen, editor of the best selling book WorldChanging and...
Ellen MacArthur signs expert crew
Ellen MacArthur unveiled a high-profile line-up of independent experts to help ensure her quest for a design and systems revolution stays on course.
Non-linear systems… and preconceptions.
Myths are powerful, neither true or entirely false, they point to sensitivities around how we think of ourselves. Its quite easy to spot them. If i...
Mining... out in the open?
Materials and energy are at the heart of the Foundation’s preoccupations and message - in a world of finite resources where the overall long term t...
Prosperity, money and the circular economy
What we know. In a circular economy energy flows through, but is increasingly based on current sunshine rather than fossil stocks; materials cycle ...
Prosperity, money and the circular economy
What we know. In a circular economy energy flows through, but is increasingly based on current sunshine rather than fossil stocks; materials cycle ...
Cleaning chemicals & chemistry education
"Today’s chemists have been brought up in the age of petroleum and we have been educated in the spirit of that age - petrochemistry", says Professo...
Materials Cycles and Critical Thinking
It’s a tough world for business when oil prices rise. In the soft drinks industry packaging often uses oil based PET - and according to plastics in...
Rethinking the Economy
Roland Clift and Julian Allwood outline how industrial ecology, applying chemical engineering thinking to the management of material flows in the e...
Why waste should be food.
The idea that recycling is a ‘good thing’ pretty much pervades the formal schooling system, but it may be due for a long overdue rethink. Recent s...
Project ReDesign launched today
The first Project ReDesign workshop has taken place on Tuesday March 1 in Glasgow. Over the next month Ellen and the team will challenge up to 1000...
Curriculum Development and Outreach
Using a clear, positive, coherent framework around the notion of a circular economy we aim to act as a catalyst to inspire people to re-think, re-d...
A look at collaborative consumption
Consumption is, as we're constantly told, what defines our modern western societies - not a very inspiring taxonomic place to be in, is it? Well, c...
Facing future challenges together
It often has been said that the European Union would give power back to regional authorities by minimising the effects of centralisation, as a natu...
Facing future challenges together
It often has been said that the European Union would give power back to regional authorities by minimising the effects of centralisation, as a natu...
The fool on the cliff.
Back from Hamburg and some training with the EPEA folks, who are well known as consultants and experts on the ‘cradle to cradle’ (C2C) approach to ...
Point of View: Professor Tim Jackson's take on prosperity
"The global economy is almost 5 times the size it was half a century ago", says Professor Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey, who sits on the ...
Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Nuffield Foundation launch Futures resource
Dame Ellen MacArthur and Cris Edgell launch the new skills-based cross-curricular Futures resources at the Association for Science Education Annual...
When technology is not enough: problems vs predicaments
If only it were just about technology, y’know redesign a telephone for easy disassembly, perhaps shift to bioplastics for some of it, rework the co...
When technology is not enough: problems vs predicaments
If only it were just about technology, y’know redesign a telephone for easy disassembly, perhaps shift to bioplastics for some of it, rework the co...
Dr Mae Wan Ho - Food after Peak Oil
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho is best known for pioneering work on the physics of organisms and sustainable systems; also a critic of genetic engineering biotechn...
Chale Community Project receives Gold category Green Apple award
The Chale Community Project - a partnership between the people of Chale on the Isle of Wight, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Southern Housing G...
Challenging greenwash in an "honest and creative way"
Artist Jacqui Jones and Harmless Packaging joined forces to "produce artwork that raises a dialogue about the importance of building sustainable fu...
A correspondent writes… blue, C2C, circular, closed loop?
I have just had a bad day in the snow. A v v bad day as Bridget Jones would say and its not just the snow falling in quantity or the slight contact...
"The reign of the conjurors"
Heading to Lille to attend the World Responsible Economy Forum had our little team reflect on an issue that tends to make the headlines more often ...
The power of feedback.
It's a puzzling old world. No sooner has the IEA’s latest outlook on world oil (1) announced that as far as conventional and cheap-to-extract oil i...
The power of feedback.
It's a puzzling old world. No sooner has the IEA’s latest outlook on world oil (1) announced that as far as conventional and cheap-to-extract oil i...
'Nature as natural capital' - an illustration of the concept
One of the principles of the circular model is that we should use insights from living systems to design systems that work and sustain themselves. ...
The future of cities: a take on Paris
An exhibition currently held in the French capital shows how the city could adapt to a 2° C temperature rise and integrate sustainable solutions. ...
The Energy Debate - Do you have the facts to make your choice informed?
Rob Sauven, Managing Director of Vestas Wind Technology UK, sits on the board of Directors of RenewableUK. He gives us his views and invites us to ...
Clean power plants of the world, unite!
Diversifying sources of energy is key, but when it comes to renewable sources, plants are often set in remote locations and getting the power to th...
Keeping the menu local - an English village's attempt at food self-sufficiency
Futurefarms, established in 2004, is a non-profitmaking operation, and all proceeds from the sale of the food are used to cover costs and to build ...
Vauban: a pioneering sustainable community in Germany
Arguably the most famous "eco-neighbourhood" of Europe, the Vauban District in Freiburg, Germany, has been used as an example for over 10 years.
Osmosis: first tests underway in Norway
Opened on 24th November 2009, the world's first osmotic power plant operated by Statkraft, Europe's largest renewable energy company
Putting a price on nature - controversial but necessary?
There is an obvious distortion between the "services" and commodities provided by nature and the economic realities of everyday life, as resources ...
Breaking free from the "Dumb Development Design" curse
Janis Birkeland, Professor of Architecture at Queensland University of Technology, explains how re-designing our built environment is the only way ...
Promote life!
“Plans are stronger when design is firmly based on a good concept”, say Dutch architects Ro Koster and Ad Kil, who form RO&AD Architecten, combinin...
Challenging common conceptions: Professor Michael Braungart in his own words
Michael Braungart is a chemist, and the co-author of “Cradle to Cradle, remaking the way we make things”.
“Current systems drive consumption more than consumers”
Professor Birkeland, author of "Positive Development: From Vicious Circles to Virtuous Cycles through Built Environment Design", answers our questi...
Closed Materials Loops and Communities
What cheap oil and gas hath torn asunder shall expensive energy bring together? ‘We don’t know’ is the honest answer.
The energy game
We know we need to generate useable energy, and we know what the options are. So what would you choose? Make your own choices based on your own val...
Oil - When will we run out?
Will the planet run out of oil in 2021, 2042 or 2105? How many trillions of barrels lie under the ground? As hard as you may look, you will not fin...
Load, Fire… erm… Aim?
The challenge of moving to a sustainable low carbon economy is huge, so doing something always seems better than doing nothing - yet panic is not a...
Load, Fire… erm… Aim?
The challenge of moving to a sustainable low carbon economy is huge, so doing something always seems better than doing nothing - yet panic is not a...
An ecological future for agriculture?
The extensive agriculture model, relying heavily on oil and offering a dubious environmental record, needs to be re-designed.
"Setting the Table": a first step towards a sustainable diet?
The Sustainable Development Commission published its “Advice to Government on priority elements of sustainable diets” in December 2009.
Teaching the fundamental facts of life
To understand how nature sustains life, we need to move from biology to ecology, because sustained life is a property of an ecosystem rather than a...