Circular economy and the European industry

By Barbara Sorgato, secretary general, European Consortium of Anchor Producers (ECAP)

Thinking in terms of circular economy, whilst living in a capitalistic system based on the principle ‘take, make, waste’, is a bit of a challenge and it will take some time for society to think in different terms. However, it seems that there may not be any time – with sustainability and the circular economy one of the challenges that the European industry is called to face now, whilst continuing to sell and compete on the global market.

To tackle this topic, the first exercise to do is to remove the magnifying glass from the world of fasteners, from our daily life, possibly even from our country and, once in space, look at the earth from afar and examine our economy system. In our current economy, regardless of the degree of economic development of states and populations, the basic principle is that we take materials from the Earth, make products from them, and eventually throw them away as waste. This process is called ‘linear process’.