The argument goes that if we continue to waste what we do not consume, we will need three planets worth of resources by 2050. And so we need an alternative consumption cycle altogether, and we are told that the onus to do so largely lies on countries still struggling to develop.
This responsibility would lie on the majority of the world then, because there are more countries that are still underdeveloped, than not. Compare the global average GDP of $13,100 to USA’s $52,800 GDP, for instance. To uplift the 700 million who live below $1.90 a day in the world, this argument assumes that a significant amount of work would need to be done by the countries whose economies are not so prosperous.
It is perceived that these countries are resource inefficient and at the least they certainly do not recycle or reuse resources. As a jury member of the prestigious Circular Awards given away annually at Davos, I get to hear this line of argument during discussions on the topic.
A visit to the infamous slums of Dharavi in Mumbai could help debunk any such generalised assumptions. Because inside one crumbling shanty in Dharavi, you could easily find four thriving businesses that would be sharing their resources. Carpenters would assemble furniture, tailors would be at work stitching denims, another few would be sewing blouses, and some would be making shoes, under one roof. They would share the electricity, water, scissors, and tools, as well as use up each other’s waste cut-outs of cloths and leather. In the neighbourhood, a boy who has outgrown his shirt would give it away to another who would fit in, along with his old school books and pencils. A refrigerator that does not work still would have a life because its mechanical parts would be dismantled and re-used.
Residents complain that they are often rejected for credit cards by commercial banks if they list a Dharavi address — how would they sustain themselves if not by maximising value out of the community’s own shared pool of resourcesIJ At times very successfully so, because interspersed with misery, Dharavi has a few millionaires, and some entire businesses are running with a multi-million turnover.
When resources are scarce and the population bursting at the seams, at the least two things can happen. One, the Government could take on a lead role in creating the institutions that improve resource allocation — China is an excellent example of it. This is not always easy to do, and democracy can be much of an impediment to a structured approach towards resource efficiency. The lack of Government-led intervention in a resource scarce country can, on the other hand, lead to people taking the initiative to maximise the value from the resources they have.
The circular economy is a resource efficient manner of life that produces no waste. All materials involved in the process are consumed, recycled or reused. There are several authentic Indian enterprise models that are intrinsically circular, driven by resource scarcity. But these models are lesser known by the developed world. They are often found in the parallel economy, therefore less documented and hardly ever showcased.
The Dharavi model of consumption was reverse engineered by Adam Werbach, who quit his top job as Chief Sustainability Officer at Saatchi & Saatchi after his visit to these slums. Adam returned from Dharavi inspired, to create Yerdle in San Francisco. Yerdle is is a smart phone application for sharing goods amongst people in the community. For instance, using Yerdle, I could allow you to use my camping tent on a day that I am not using it. Instead of money exchange, Yerdle is based on a ‘pay it forward’ principle of credits. I had accompanied Adam on this trip in November 2011 to Dharavi, where Adam had discovered this thriving barter economy.
It is a catch-22, isn’t it when a creative scalable model is born out of the parallel economyIJ Because these models stand a greater chance to remain buried, and perhaps thrive below the surface. The proponents of these models often do not have access to adequate information, networks, and platforms on which they can showcase their experience either. And so despite the existence of a few brilliant alternative models for resource efficiency in some developing countries, there are less chances that the world would know of them. For example, at The Circular Economy Awards last year, of the 212 applicants from 32 countries, only one application came from India. For this year’s deadline of September 30, there are no applicants from India yet.
Prosperity may bear a strong legacy of linear models of consumption, where it would be less compelling for members of such a community to maximise value. Several generations of this behaviour makes it even more difficult to change. And we should know this well that it is rare for mindsets to change for the planet’s sake. Scarcity, on the other hand, can leave you with no other option but to draw value out of every bit of waste generated. Necessity creates innovative models to do so. Further, a prolonged era of scarcity does not need to carry the legacy of wasteful behaviour patterns either.
Is there a way that we can engage with parallel economies in developing countries, and find a way to reverse engineer these brilliant models of resource efficiency into the same countryIJ Nothing works better than authenticity.
The writer is Chief Sustainability Officer for the group of companies, Jindal Steel and Power ltd. She is a Global leadership Alumna of the World Economic Forum. miniya.chatterji@jindalsteel.com