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This is the 2nd part of Catherine’s conversation with Ken Webster, one of the foremost thinkers in the circular economy field, where we explore concepts for a critical aspect that’s being ignored – the economy itself!
In this episode, we go deeper into the possibilities offered by a universal basic dividend, especially as we move to a world where artificial intelligence might completely change the nature of work.
Ken mentions his work with Earth4all, supporting the discourse and new thinking marking the 50th anniversary of the Club of Rome’s ground-breaking Limits to Growth report.
We move on to Ken’s mission to make these concepts easier to grasp and to help people get excited, plus the importance of getting really clear on the core idea, before trying to make this work in practical terms.
Ken explains the overlaps between the thinking around circular economy and complex, adaptive systems and highlights some of the glaring faultlines in mainstream economic thinking.
That leads us back to the Commons and regenerative and open systems, together with the key questions that should be at the heart of designing circular products, components and materials,
And we finish by hearing a bit more about Ken’s most recent books, including ABC&D: Creating a Regenerative Circular Economy for All – co-written with Craig Johnson, and his latest book, The Wonderful Circles of Oz: A Circular Economy Story, written with Alex Duff.
If you haven’t already, please do listen to the previous episode to hear Ken talk about the Universal Basic Dividend (not Universal Basic Income), and the importance of reviving the concepts of commoning, and the Commons.
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Read on for more on our guest and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
Links for our guest:
- LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/ken-webster-28825110
- Email: ken@circulareconomy.co.uk
Books, people and organisations we mentioned
- The Wonderful Circles of Oz: A Circular Economy Story, by Ken Webster and Alex Duff – a new and compelling narrative about the future direction of our economy, calling for macro-economic system design. https://www.routledge.com/The-Wonderful-Circles-of-Oz-A-Circular-Economy-Story/Webster-Duff/p/book/9781032109107 and https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-wonderful-circles-of-oz-a-circular-economy-story-ken-webster/18110152?ean=9781032109107
- The Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows by Ken Webster (2nd edition) https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-circular-economy-a-wealth-of-flows-2nd-edition-revised-preface-and-conclusion-plus-additional-chapter-ken-webster/6577289?ean=9780992778460
- ABC&D by Craig Johnson and Ken Webster https://bookshop.org/p/books/abc-d-creating-a-regenerative-circular-economy-for-all-craig-johnson/17863262
- Sense and Sustainability https://bookshop.org/p/books/sense-and-sustainability-ken-webster/12266285?ean=9780955983108 https://bookshop.org/p/books/sense-and-sustainability-ken-webster/12266285?ean=9780955983108
- Michel Bauwens and the Peer to Peer Foundation – http://p2pfoundation.net
- David Bollier – news and perspectives on the commons – https://www.bollier.org/
- Christian Felber’s book Change Everything: Creating an Economy for the Common Good https://christian-felber.at/en/books/
- Guy Standing – https://www.guystanding.com/ and a short YouTube video on rentier capitalism – The Wealth Paradox https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ5gAiY5-ZY
- Massimo de Angelis, author of The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital, and editor of The Commoner web journal, at http://commoner.org.uk.
- Elinor Ostrom – awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009 for her “analysis of economic governance, especially the commons”, which she shared with Oliver E. Williamson. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom
- Earth4all – a vibrant collective of leading economic thinkers, scientists, and advocates, convened by The Club of Rome, the BI Norwegian Business School, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Building on the legacies of The Limits to Growth and the Planetary Boundaries frameworks, science is at the heart of our work. Leading scientists have developed state of the art systems dynamic models and run different scenarios for possible plausible futures. https://earth4all.life/
- Club of Rome – Limits to Growth +50 – a range of resources published to mark the 50th anniversary of the Limits to Growth report in 1972 https://www.clubofrome.org/ltg50/
- Tipping Point – the true story of the Limits to Growth. “50 years ago, they told us what was coming. Why were they ignored? A 3-part podcast about the true-crime story of “The Limits to Growth”: The study, the backlash – and its legacy” https://tippingpoint-podcast.com/
- Materiom – “the next generation of materials is waste-free and regenerative by design.” https://materiom.org/
Guest bio
Ken Webster is a Visiting Professor at Cranfield University and a Fellow of CISL (Cambridge University Institute for Sustainability Leadership). From 2010 – end 2018 he was Head of Innovation for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a circular economy pioneer organization, where he helped shape current notions of a ‘circular economy’. More recently he has worked at Univ of Exeter Business School (2019-2021). Ken was awarded a DSc from Univ. of Brighton in 2023.
His book The Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows (2nd Edition 2017) relates the connections between systems thinking, economic and business opportunity and the transition to a circular economy. He makes regular contributions to conferences and seminars around the world. His current interests include; open vs closed circular economy approaches, construction and the built environment, extended producer ownership and materials data management. Ken is on the supervisory board of the Madaster Foundation in Amsterdam – a materials passport organisation.
He contributed to the new Handbook of the Circular Economy (Eds. Alexander, Pascucci and Charnley (2023) and was a contributor and editor on Earth for All from the Club of Rome. He is a lead author on circular economy for UNEP’s GEO-7 report (in development).
A recent book with an emphasis on exploring different scales, especially in food and agriculture is ABC&D Creating a Regenerative Circular Economy for All (with Craig Johnson), published in 2022.
