Circular Economy Concept

THE SCENARIO: You are the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a major global corporation. You are often invited to speak at conferences. Frequently, you meet with your company’s Board of Directors, industry leaders, other CFOs, and politicians that develop public policies affecting your industry.

In 2013, you met Ellen MacArthur at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. As a result, you became interested in the “circular economy”. In the years since then, you’ve influenced your company to adopt a “circular economy approach.

Your company has had great success with this. It has reduced expenses and the negative impacts of its products and operations throughout the spectrum of its extended producer responsibility. You’ve become an expert on the circular economy. The story of your company’s success with this approach has brought attention from other businesses and industries as well as the news media.

THE ASSIGNMENT: The U.S. President’s Council on Economic Growth had a speaker recently who explained the circular economy concept. Members of the Council now understand what the circular economy is. The Council has invited you to give a brief speech on how the circular economy can drive economic growth. (Do not bore them by telling them what the circular economy is.)

In the audience will be business leaders, faculty of major universities, economists, policy makers and politicians. For this Paper, you will write the speech you will give to the Council. The title of your presentation will be “Driving Economic Growth with a Circular Economy”.

If you use a definition or knowledge you gained from the reading, be sure to use your own words. Putting concepts in your own words can help develop your understanding of them and solidify them in your memory.

If you use content directly from the reading or you paraphrase it, you will be plagiarizing the material. Consider the audience you are giving your speech to: senior executives of large companies, high level government officials, leading economists, etc.

This is a sophisticated group! Think about the problems they deal with every day, such as how to manage costs, how to generate new revenue streams, what public policies are needed to drive economic growth, and the question “can we achieve economic growth without dependence on our current consumption-driven economy?” Your speech should connect the circular economy to the work the people in your audience do to address these problems.

By the end of your speech, your audience should understand how the circular economy is relevant to solving their problems and growing the economy.