One of the central aims of the circular economy is to decouple economic growth from the defunct business model based on selling more physical products.
For generations we’ve made, sold, and then hurriedly made more stuff to sell. Our goal was to nurture the economy with little attention paid to what we took from nature, or what that would cost us. We became obsessed with monitoring GDP when we should have been watching our GHGs as closely. A standout marker of this boundless consumption is November’s Black Friday.
Black Friday remains an unmoveable constant in the global calendar, falling the day after Thanksgiving every year. Earth Overshoot Day on the other hand strides forward every year – jumping from August 1 in 2024 to July 24 this year. And rather than focus on reconnecting with family and friends which Thanksgiving is all about, Black Friday commands consuming with impunity - everything we want, everything now.
The environmental bill behind the bargains
American shoppers are estimated to spend around US$75 billion across Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, while in the UK that figure is around £3 billion. The UK carbon emissions from the home delivery of Black Friday orders is reported to have topped 429,000 metric tons, in 2020. With half of all global greenhouse gas emissions linked to the products we buy and the food we consume, this annual shopping bonanza is very low on environmental special offers. Just before Christmas and the January sales it’s a hard slap in the face for sustainability.
As a nature lover, I often think about the cost to wildlife of our growing consumption. The more goods we consume, the more space we need to produce them. Last month, the beautiful slender billed curlew was declared extinct, marking the first known global extinction of a formerly widespread migratory bird species.
Without wishing to be a total killjoy or ignore the usefulness of astute shopping, wouldn’t we be better off introducing a Circular Saturday?
A Circular Saturday could be the day we think about all the stuff we already have, being grateful for it and how we can reuse or recycle as a means of getting the ‘thrill’ that we know shopping gives people. In fact, studies have shown that while shopping can improve moods, in many cases it is short lived, and can lead to the opposite feeling; while feelings of gratitude are long-lived.
The heavy footprint of fashion
Clothing is one of the heavy hitters of Black Friday of course, when sales are expected to spike, but our research shows that most UK’s wardrobes are already full of clothes that we haven’t worn in a year.
UNEP estimates that between 2% and 8% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the textiles sector, an industry with an annual 215-trillion-litres thirst for water and which produces around 9% of the annual microplastic pollution that flows into our oceans.
What about looking at what we already have, re-wearing the golden oldies or releasing these unworn items back into the market? We found second-hand sales are very effective in displacing the sale of new clothes, and for buyers it feels so good to grab a bargain.
After COP30: some hope
Black Friday falls shortly after the annual COP meeting, and this year has seen another failure to mitigate against fossil fuels use, but within the fortnight of COP30 there were some positives. The coalition of the willing is working in areas like food waste reduction where collaboration between governments, the private sector and NGOs are having impact.
We found that just 30 countries had included food loss and waste commitments in their NDCs going into the conference, but attention is at last focussing on the food system and the conference produced the Food Waste Breakthrough, to help cities halve food waste, cut methane emissions and reduce hunger.
The way the mayors at the global mayors’ summit publish, drive and review their action plans each year is a working model of what is possible. The coalitions it brings between cities across the world to work on Accelerators of mutual importance is a flourishing model and an exemplar that more countries learn from – and adopt a similar process.
And meanwhile, in the UK, WRAP has just published annual results of The UK Plastics Pact, the first of a global network which collectively have reduced virgin plastic use by millions of tonnes. The latest results highlight the significant shifts towards better packaging and systems in UK supermarkets and retailers. And all done voluntarily through collaboration.
With the food we eat and goods we use accounting for nearly half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, it’s critical that we place greater emphasis on circular living. And living this way not only protects nature and brings social benefit, but there are also commercial opportunities. For example, Urban Outfitters sister company Nuuly in the USA has quickly become an industry leader in apparel rental, with most of its customers new to the rental market and retaining a significant proportion of customers.
So, on Black Friday, it’s important that we recognise that without change, it will bring Earth Overshoot Day ever nearer to the beginning of the year. And the sooner we recognise the real cost of a bargain, the richer we’ll become.