This is for the first time in the history of industrial economic development that green business (blue economy), which looks at both biological and non-biological feedback system to be sustainable (cradle-to-cradle approach compatible with industrial ecology framework), seems to be doing much better than linear, ‘take, make, faink (dispose)’ economy. Over the last five years, circular economy has generated £100 billion growth in the UK while the rest of the economy was in dumps.

So what does it mean for India? For one, we need to stop learning from the dominant industrial model which treats externality as a problem of government, the society at large, and even nature.

It is not surprising that grassroots innovations invariably use recycled parts in designing various solutions – and not surprisingly  they fail to meet the regulator’s outdated parameters of certification. While talking at different forums recently, I made several suggestions that can give fillip to circular economy.

Some of them are:

1. We should immediately take up reform of regulatory and approval  system, such as transport, so that vehicles, farm machinery like saanti, handio, and other improvements using old parts can be tested and approved for road worthiness. The same would apply to other domains where secondhand parts are used.

2. Imagine Indian economy without distributed repair and service economy. No other country might get more out of any product or service than India. Yet, where are the skill development courses that focus on reducing, recycling, reusing, and what I call rejuvenation? Different components of any machine – say, an airplane – wear out at different rates and thus have a different functional life. The airplane may be junked in, say, 25 years but its chair may have life for 200 years. Why should these chairs not be refurbished and sold as household furniture? This is what Lufthansa did.

Policy implication means that different components should have fatigue factor marked on them and these should be active policy-induced rejuvenation of these long-lasting components. Devices with secondhand parts should of course be tested like any other device and then encouraged if found fit, which is likely.

3. There should be local, regional, national and global waste exchanges with all characteristic properties and then awards announced for finding new applications for them to reduce environmental complications. Platforms like techpedia.in can play an active role in this.

4. Special funds should be created to invigorate circular economy at decentralised level. It will help not only generate environmentally positive outcomes but also pawn more enterprises and, in turn, jobs. Alongside the district innovation fund, we should create a social and environmental fund in each district. If a government has money to subsidise food for the wealthy, it certainly has funds to promote social, environmental and economic start-ups in reach district.

5. Local language database of used parts of different kinds must be made available at each ICT kiosk and with mobile apps to every mobile user so that circular economy gets a boost.

6. The invigoration of informal economy will take place in a big way when rural and semi-urban mechanics and roadside urban mechanics will know about a whole range of components available for reconstitution, re-assembly, redesign and rejuvenation. The students of ITI and polytechnics can do tagging and characterisation of these components and make the database more interactive and informative.

7. When economic conditions are tight, one has to invent new ways of creating opportunities for a whole new generation of entrepreneurs. These exchanges of waste, component and tool and devices will fertilise imagination of the younger generation. The India Inclusive Innovation Fund will of course ignore all such opportunities but hopefully some empathetic leaders in public and private sector will see the potential of circular economy.

8. Patents both live and expired relating to these components and waste materials will be pooled and used to annotate entries in the database.

I hope that circular economy will forge new kinds of partnership between the formal and informal sectors and create new entrepreneurial pathways of socially inclusive development.