Chapter 15: Circular economy and sustainable consumption: Suggestions for ethical marketing

Currently there is an ongoing push towards a circular economy. Governments, the EU, green NGOs, think-tanks, companies and their industry organizations are all advocating more circular solutions meaning that the current linear take-make-use-lose model of consumption should be replaced with a reuse-repair-recycle circular model. The circular economy is being heralded as one of the main, if not the only, solution to the current pressing sustainability problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Companies are struggling to develop business models that are more in line with this circular thinking, closely related to the so-called sharing economy, where sharing of product take priority over ownership. Car sharing, tool libraries, and repair shops are some examples that are starting to attract consumers, although progress hitherto has been slow. In order to attract consumers, words such as refurbished, zero-waste, recycled, and recyclable are being used by marketers. At the surface it might be easy to get the impression that the circular economy is already here and that consumers can go on consuming as before as long as the products are part of the circular system. Might it even be so that an increasing focus on the circular economy could detract attention from the necessary reduction of consumption and material throughput? The purpose of this chapter is to critically examine the problems and possibilities of the circular economy and discuss how it is related to (un)ethical marketing and what is necessary if the circular economy is to contribute to solving the pressing sustainability problems. This is done by discussing how the circular economy can be promoted together with consumption reduction, the necessity of certain policies and regulations, and the importance of handling consumer lock-in and potential rebound effects in making the circular economy not only technically achievable but also more ethical.