Often the Trump Administration’s concern to create jobs has taken priority over, and been in conflict with, other important issues such as sustainability and the need to tackle climate change. However, the rise of circular economy business models represents an opportunity for the Administration’s jobs agenda and the business community’s concerns about sustainability to align. The circular economy could be a driving force for the creation of local jobs as well as better environmental stewardship.

Circular models and local jobs

A growing number of companies, including some of the world’s largest corporations such as Apple, Walmart, P&G and DowDuPont, have adopted circular economy commitments that could have profound impacts on the way they and their suppliers work.

There has been much focus on the environmental benefits of the circular economy: how it could minimize the extraction and use of virgin materials, reduce waste and pollution, cut costs and mitigate supply chain risk, among others. However, less attention has been paid to how the circular economy can boost local communities and local jobs, both through its potential to create new markets and products and its emphasis on creating local material loops and shortening supply chains.

The scale of economic opportunity represented by a shift to circular is vast. The International Resource Panel, part of the UN’s Environment Programme, says that using resources more effectively could increase the size of the global economy by $2 trillion by 2050, about the same as the GDP of Italy. And the consultancy Circle Economy points out that the global economy reuses just 9% of the 84 billion tons of material that are consumed every year.

At a local level, switching to a circular economy, from a linear “take, make, waste” model of production and consumption would involve much more recycling, repair, reuse, and remanufacture of products. It would also increase the emphasis of private and public sector organizations on locally sourced materials.

This change in emphasis could create local jobs that could not be readily outsourced to lower-cost markets, given the need for skilled workers to turn old goods into new resources, to collect and process recycled materials, and to source materials locally. It could save municipalities huge amounts of money, too. New York City disposes of more than six million tons of waste per year, and its plan to reduce the amount that it sends to landfill by 90% by 2030 would save the city an estimated $310 million per year.

For a number of sectors, there are real benefits on offer. In food and agriculture, circular-related initiatives such as vertical farming, local sourcing of produce, and the adoption of local food procurement policies—which is happening in cities such as Baltimore, Seattle, New York and Los Angeles—will all help to shorten supply chains between farmers and retailers/consumers while creating jobs locally.