THE CIRCULARITY GAP REPORT 2022 5

In the six years between the world still experiencing the compound effects These enormous volumes of materials—by and paint a grim future: according to the International headline-grabbing climate conferences, the global of a pandemic. [...] It carries the the circular economy moved from the fringes to solutions countries and businesses need to meet their the mainstream—yet remaining far from being climate goals, safeguard the Earth’s resources and the norm—and five years since the first Circularity protect all people. [...] mainstream outlets, such as National Geographic, period, the use of natural resources, including fossil The New Scientist and the UN’s Global Environmental From the four seasons to day becoming night, our fuels, increased tremendously and has continued to China’s Circular Economy Promotion Law in 2008 and Outlook for Business—to illustrate the severity of our planet Earth functions in a naturally. [...] Capturing the circularity of the world in consumes sunlight to create sugar, which allows acorns colonisation and its stifling policies in the 19th century for 35% of global GDP and 25% of the global population. [...] LET ’S FAST-FORWARD TO THE PRESENT: 2022 SLOW: USE LONGER In the past half-century, the world’s population has In extending the functional lifetime of resources, the emissions more than doubled,17 yet the amount of material attached to material flows are spread out and reduced over time.